


The Bigger Picture

by HarrietHopkirk



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Bromance, Coming of Age, Community: HPFT, Crime Fighting, Daily Prophet, Friendship, Mystery, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-26
Updated: 2016-08-13
Packaged: 2018-07-10 09:57:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 22,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6978673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarrietHopkirk/pseuds/HarrietHopkirk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dennis Creevey definitely does not get the bigger picture.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prank Strikes Hogwarts, One Suspended

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Teddy Lupin, 17, godson of acclaimed Wizarding hero Harry Potter, blows up half a dungeon and endangers the lives of professors and students. Pictures and details inside, as well as how to recognise cat hairs from dog hairs.

They say a picture paints a thousand words, but for Dennis Creevey, they also pay his rent.

Alone in his tiny cubicle, he shifted through hundreds of photographs, the eyes of different people staring up at him as they smiled and grinned into the camera lens. He strained his eyes; the pitiful light from the dwindling oil lamp made it difficult to see the various moving people in the photograph.

Dennis glanced at his watch and saw the minute hand crawl past the six o’clock mark. A bell rang somewhere in the corridor, and it coincided with the shifting of chairs backwards, the yawns and groans as people stretched, the idle chatter of people finally free of work. The day’s toil was done.

The people in the photograph on his desk were encouraging him to stay, to finish checking this last lot of pictures, a task that needed to be finished by tomorrow morning. _That was the right thing to do_ , Dennis agreed, _but it was also the boring thing to do._

It was time to go home. Today had been another in a long string of bad days, and he rubbed his eyes free of tiredness.

As he sorted through the many reels of film and the copies of photographs that littered his already untidy desk, he wondered how long he had been doing this, and how long his landlord would be waiting - lurking in the shadows - until Dennis returned home so that he could jump out and demand his money.

It turned out pictures were infinitely better at painting a thousand words.

It would probably take the landlord just around five and half minutes to move from his flat into the landing, taking into account the minor heart defect, the low angle of the chair he usually wallowed in, and the effort involved in putting down his magazine and moving the bowl of cheesy snacks from his lap to the nearby table.

_Probably,_ Dennis reasoned, _but highly likely._ He would get away with it for another day if just ran a little bit faster.

Dennis packed up his things, shoving the pictures unceremoniously into his rucksack (at least they hid the half-eaten pumpkin pasty and the lone sickle rolling around at the bottom) and shuffled awkwardly out of his booth, grabbing his anorak on the way out.

“Oi, Creevey! Could you possibly just have a look at…”

Dennis kept his head down, and barged his way through the dwindling crowd. Home, to his tiny flat with a broken bed-frame, a pot of week-old stew and his newest copy of _Martin Miggs, the Mad Muggle_. Home, to an angry landlord and an angrier letter from his mother.

And, as he pressed the elevator button for the ground floor, Dennis wondered whether life would get more exciting by itself, or whether he would have to do all the work himself.

 

***

 

Teddy Lupin had always hated running, and this time it was made all the worse by the people chasing him down the hill towards the gamekeeper’s hut. His breath was laboured as he galloped over the tumbling tree roots and the boulders, easily avoiding the patches of wet grass that would have resulted in grazed elbows and a detention.

He hadn’t meant to set the dungeon alight. It was all just a misunderstanding. Fred, in his amateur, foolhardy ways, had decided it was a good idea to add an Ashwinder egg to an infusion of wormwood and rat’s liver, and it had all gone awry from there.

But of course, Teddy was the one to blame.

He swerved around an oak tree, pausing for a second in its shadow to see whether his pursuers were far behind. _Stupid, stupid Fred._ He should have resisted the puppy dog eyes and go on alone, as planned. He had just wanted someone to whom his skills and tricks could be entrusted after he left this place, and Fred was the only willing volunteer - the grasshopper to his master, so to speak.

“He’s over here! I just saw him! By the tree!”

And then Teddy was flying over the grounds again, his robes swinging behind him, purple dust from the explosion threatening to get into his eyes. If he could just get beyond the gates - just a few more yards - he would be safe, hidden within the hustle and bustle of Hogsmeade. He would lay low. He would sit down with a nice butterbeer and a copy of the Daily Prophet and contemplate the day's work. Congratulate himself on avoiding the wrath of Professor Pennyhugh. It was just beyond this inexplicably large boulder...

But then, suddenly, something large and hairy was blocking his path, and he went careering into its back. He fell back onto the damp ground. The voices of his professors were soon within earshot.

"Curse you, Hagrid," he mumbled.

 

***

 

“Dennis! Dennis, wait!”

It took Dennis a few moments to realise that someone was calling his name.

Dennis had never really interacted with his colleagues in the office - apart from Bernard, the strange old man who worked on the other side of his booth, who was in charge of nature photography (several billywigs were now roosting in the filing cabinet and Dennis was pretty sure Bernard was incubating a basilisk egg underneath the desk lamp). There was Linda, the strange dinner lady. And then there was Sally, but that was different.

So he was surprised when a young woman approached him, curly hair bouncing. Her face was strangely angular, Dennis supposed, but he wouldn’t call her ugly. She would be nice to photograph, maybe in low light and low focus. He had trouble recalling her name and so simply stared at her.

“Hello,” he said. It was better than trying to guess her name and failing, therefore avoiding the awkward shuffle and strained apologetic look.

She wore plain, sensible clothes that were too big for her and her thick, dark and curly hair was pulled up into a scruffy ponytail. She had failed to scrub a splotch of ink from behind her right ear. She was carrying a vast pile of articles, which she dumped onto the front desk and then turned to face him.

“Meredith, remember? From yesterday? You asked me about double-checking some names.”

Dennis nodded quickly, as if he hadn’t forgotten. She started organising the pile of parchment into separate sections and slotting them into various trays. She worked quickly and efficiently, and she talked at the same time. 

“It turns out that Mr Henry Lemington-Smythe _is_ getting married to Lucinda Whitfield on Monday. There was a bit confusion about his gambling habits but now everything is fine and dandy.”

Dennis nodded, as if he didn’t already know this information. He slotted the sorted photographs into the trays.

Meredith had finished organising her papers and now just lurked in front of him. She pushed a piece of stray hair behind her ear. Her cheeks had turned a strange pink colour and Dennis wondered what was going on. He had heard about stress-induced seizures, and copy hour was always tough going.

“A couple of us are going to get a drink, if you wanted to join. The cafe downstairs has a new slightly dodgy liquor license,” she said, laughing weakly. She was talking far too quickly, and a sheen of sweat had blossomed at her brow. He watched her hair bobbing slightly as she spoke to him. She pushed her glasses further up her nose. “I mean, if you don’t want to then that’s fine, I suppose...”

“I’ve actually got to go.”

“Oh, is your wife expecting you home?”

“I’m not married.” He wondered why Meredith was looking at him so intently, her bright brown eyes gazing at him. A faint blush traced her cheeks. She looked better with colour in her cheeks, and Dennis believed she would look better if she wore reds and pinks, rather than the strangely murky green she was currently sporting.

“So you’re meeting your girlfriend?”

“I don’t have one,” he said, trying to work out why Meredith’s facial expression was one of complete happiness. Surely he wasn’t _that_ exciting. He saw her mouth form the word ‘boyfriend’ and, coupled with her quizzical look, he quickly added, “listen, Maureen...”

“Meredith,” she corrected. Dennis shuffled awkwardly and sent her a strained, apologetic look.

“Right. I’ve really got to go. I’ve got to get up early tomorrow.”

“Of course, of course. Maybe another time.” Her voice was weaker now, and her face was flushed. She looked at her toes and so did Dennis. Her shoes were sensible too, and matched her rather holey cardigan. Meredith also had a cat, Dennis could tell, from the collection of short hairs on her mid-calf and the three parallels scratches on her right arm and the faint whiff of loneliness.

Cats were fun to photograph, kittens especially. Dress a kitten up in a bow tie and photograph it, and it would make anybody’s day. Sally always laughed at those.

Dennis pulled the corners of his mouth upwards, and Meredith smiled. A paper message was zooming around her head and, still looking at Dennis, she reached up and caught the fast moving thing in her fist. It stayed struggling in her hand. Dennis readjusted the strap of his backpack again, wondering what was going on, why Meredith was staring at him intently, whether he had left the stove on, whether that black and white close-up of his grandmother’s hands really was that noteworthy...

“Bye, then, Dennis.”

He nodded again before turning sharply on his heel and leaving.

 

***

 

“I can’t believe you did this, Teddy.”

“They were asking for it.”

“Really? The dungeons were asking for it?”

Teddy slumped in his chair as his godfather whispered words of disappointment and annoyance in his ear. The portraits of various headmasters glared down at them from above, and Teddy felt small and ashamed of himself. It hadn’t been a good idea to run, probably. He should have thought of an exit strategy that didn’t involve that much exercise. He was still struggling to catch his breath. Teddy should have summoned his broomstick - that was a good idea that had never been done before, and it definitely wasn’t like he had heard the story again and again at Christmases and birthdays and parties.

“What do you think your grandmother is going to think?”

“That it’s funny,” Teddy said, but Harry shook his head. He continued. “I just don’t understand why you’re being judgmental, it’s not like you - or Dad, for that matter - had the cleanest of sheets when it came to this sort of stuff.”

“I shouldn’t have given you the Marauder’s Map.”

“Yep, that’s definitely where it all went downhill. You trying to be the ‘cool’ godfather.”

“Excuse me that is just...”

“Mr Potter? Mr Lupin? Sorry to keep you waiting.”

The Headmaster entered his study and as Harry stood up to shake his hand, Teddy sunk lower into his chair to avoid eye contact. Professor Pennyhugh was notoriously harsh on pranksters - one year he had suspended Jimmy Fodder for simply planning some elaborate scheme. Admittedly it was a thoroughly ridiculous project involving various explosions and traps involving cakes and cookies, but the slight to the pranking community was still felt. People were terrified of the Headmaster now.

Apart from Teddy obviously, who possessed the Marauder’s Map and his godfather’s invisibility cloak, and used them both to great advantage. He was in another league. A league of his own. A league that all the other Hogwarts pranksters’ could only aspire to be in. He was good at what he did. There was no reason for Pennyhugh to persecute talent, was there? He actively encouraged when it came to things like studying, or Quidditch, or Gobstones - whatever that was.

“I gather, Mr Potter, that you comprehend the seriousness of the situation.”

Harry coughed awkwardly. “I do.”

“And that this is _not_ the first occasion in which we’ve caught Mr Lupin doing something like this.”

“I understand.”

Pennyhugh turned to Teddy this time, and stared down at him. “How about you, Teddy? Do you recognise the seriousness of what you have done?”

“I suppose.”

The Headmaster sighed, and scribbled something down on a sheet of parchment on his desk. Harry elbowed Teddy in the ribs, which made him almost cry out. His godfather was staring at him, mouthing words that Teddy couldn’t understand... antagonize or apologize, maybe, something similar. Teddy ignored him. There was no use in doing that now. If he was going to be sorry about it, he shouldn’t have done it in the first place. Pennyhugh would know that he was just sorry that he got caught.

And where was Fred? His protégé should have been here as well. He was mainly to blame.

“Our usual procedure with situations like this is to suspend the student for three days, minimum, depending on the nature of the crime. Mr. Lupin will have to serve out this punishment, I’m afraid.”

Teddy inwardly smiled. He would get to spend several days with his grandmother, baking cakes and sitting in rocking chairs, talking about his parents and his grandfather and the good old days. He wouldn’t have to do homework - just some boring essay about how would never do it again, like he had to write for when he lured Felicity Shipley into that Vanishing Cabinet. And summer was around the corner - this way, it would be able to start early.

“But,” Pennyhugh continued, “because this ‘prank’ could have easily endangered the lives of several students and teachers, we’re asking this time that Teddy do something extra... something that shows he is worthy of being a Hogwarts student and capable of integrating into the outer wizarding community.”

Teddy sat up. How dare Pennyhugh suggest he was some sort of social outsider, unable to socialise because of his fascination with explosions and practical jokes? Teddy had plenty of friends, boys and girls. They all liked him, he reckoned. Well, they laughed at his jokes.

“We want Teddy to take up some sort of internship over the summer. We’ve already arranged something at the Daily Prophet. He starts a week after term ends.”

“But my summer!” Teddy blurted out. “I had plans!”

“I’m sure you did,” Pennyhugh said. “But if you don’t go through with this, you will not be able to return to Hogwarts to finish your education and complete your NEWTs. I’m sorry, Teddy, but the situation has called for some serious action.”

Teddy scowled. He ignored Harry as he stood up to shake the Headmaster’s hand and apologised on his godson’s behalf. He ignored the Headmaster’s smug smirk as he stood up and stomped out of the office. He ignored whatever Harry was saying to him on the journey back down to the Hufflepuff common room, and the catcalls and jeers of his housemates.

All because of Fred Weasley. Never add an Ashwinder egg to an infusion of wormwood and rat’s liver. It just results in a lot of time wasted, too much running and a whole summer down the drain.


	2. Groom Gambles Away His Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucinda Whitfield leaves groom abandoned at altar as she runs away from fairytale wedding in Cotswolds countryside. Pictures by Dennis Creevey. More information on gambling habits and why everyone is drinking lemonade on page two.

 "I'm bored."

"You said."

Teddy was sitting on a chair in the garden, sunning himself in the pleasant weather. The ground around him was littered with various projects and activities that he had picked up and then discarded as they failed to eliminate the tedium he felt: books, comics, even the opening sentences of his apology essay. His grandmother sat in the chair next to him.

"Is there anything I can do?" Teddy asked.

"Well there is some laundry in the..."

"Yeah, I'm all right."

He picked up a piece of gravel from the ground and threw it towards the pond. There was a croak, a ribbit, and something fell into the water with a splash. Teddy shrugged.

"I'm bored."

His grandmother stood up, picking up two empty glasses. She tutted quietly, and Teddy frowned. She had been unspeakably different since he almost blew up a dungeon and got suspended from school. He wanted to put it down to her being a little older, but he knew he couldn’t. Maybe she was a little wiser - wiser to his pranks and his school grades, and she was realising that she couldn’t let him get away with it this time.

“I know what you’re going to say.”

“What’s that, Ted?”

“That you’re disappointed in me.”

His grandmother ruffled his hair affectionately.

“I’ll get more lemonade.”

He watched her walk back into the house, noticing the way she winced and rubbed her hip. She had never appeared this old before - he supposed that things had changed since he had been at school, and now she liked to take more naps in the afternoon and not walk very long distances. Harry hadn't said anything. Maybe it was just a natural process.

He saw an owl flutter down and perch on the fence, a letter trapped in its beak. He got up to get it, sauntering across the garden in the midday heat. He really should help his grandmother with the laundry, he thought, and perhaps finish that essay. He felt a wave of productivity surround him that would grip him for the next five minutes and then dissolve into a pit of procrastination that would result in his room being the tidiest it has ever been.

Teddy opened the letter. It was from Pennyhugh. It outlined various details about the whole Prophet thing, and how he expected the essay tomorrow morning.

All he wanted to do this summer was to sit in his grandmother’s garden, perhaps babysit a couple of times, design more and more elaborate pranks and hone his running skills so that making a quick exit wasn’t so much of a challenge, and would become a more viable option in future escapades.

Teddy didn’t want to do an internship at the Prophet. He didn’t want to sit around and make cups of coffee for people who believed their word was law and fabricated lies and stories at every turn. It would not change his life or put him in a better place for employment, he wouldn’t learn vital skills. Teddy would just be bored.

He crumpled up the piece of parchment and threw it over his shoulder. There was a croak and a ribbit and something fell into the water with a splash.

Damn frog.

 

***

 

White lace swished along green grass, and the patter of footsteps dissipated with every passing moment. The shouts and gasps of surprise, even a pleading cry, were muffled by the booming sounds of the organ. The flock of doves burst free of their cages in an unexpected flurry of melodrama.

Dennis captured those passing moments.

People sat in the pews, facing the open doorway, near where Dennis was standing. He had arrived late, entering at the same time as some pertinent vows. People thought he was here to protest the marriage - faces turned towards him, wide-eyed and staring, gossip pressing at the tips of their tongues, but he just raised a hand in apology and took his place near the back. It should have given the congregation some idea of what was to come, prepared them emotionally for the vision in white running away from the chapel and the trauma that was to follow.

People were still whispering and giggling as the doors closed with a slam. The mother of the bride was weeping, and the father was shouting mercilessly at some small pageboy. The groom was dancing and whooping and kissing one of the bridesmaids. Dennis took a photo of that, too. Dennis watched as a small boy, dressed to the nines in elaborate velvet dress robes, picking his nose. Dennis raised the camera to his eye, focused, and pressed the shutter button. He doubted the paper would publish it, but he found it funny all the same. His mother promptly reprimanded the boy.

Finally, they started to leave in dribs and drabs, still speaking words of slander and curiosity. Dennis didn’t care. He shut his camera off, packing it carefully in his case and stalked out of the chapel, into the dreary foggy weather. He unearthed a sherbet lemon from a pocket within his too-large overcoat and slipped it into his mouth.

Dennis had no doubt that this debacle of a wedding would be splashed all over the society section.

He had never really understood the preoccupation with the lives of other people. To Dennis, there was something so inherently boring about the people that surrounded him now, and the petty arguments and slanderous comments that seemed to send the Prophet's readership reeling. Fresh scandals would eclipse it eventually, and those new stories’ more piquant details would draw the gossip away from this old drama.

He just found it all so boring. Even he could have guessed that the groom was having an affair with the bridesmaid from the lipstick on his collar and the perfume. And he could see that he was still gambling from the nervous twitch of his fingers and the strong stench of cigars. He could see Evelyn over there now, quill in hand, waiting for the groom’s comment while being chastised by the bride’s mother.

It was all so boring, so hideously and ridiculously repetitive. Turn up at some fancy party or wedding, some gala or ceremony, and take photos of people you don’t the name of and then send them to Evelyn so she can comment on their lifestyle and their livelihood and their inner most secrets. Aside from the dreary monotony, Dennis felt guilty - maybe some of these people didn’t want him here, didn’t want him invading their special day.

Dennis looked around, at the spoilt children and the gossiping broads, at the drunken men with their red noses and bulging bellies. The state of these wizards and witches had certainly declined since the great days of Harry Potter - photos of him still appeared in the photo albums stored in his brothers’ room back at his parents’ home. Dennis supposed that these attempts at the celebrity - appearing drunk and engaging in various indiscretions - were these people’s way to achieve what Potter had. But then again, nothing would compare to saving the world from the darkest wizard of all time - certainly not some ludicrous affair with the bridesmaid and a gambling addiction.

Evelyn called him over, and he outlined the details of some of the photos, pointing out different captions and names of the people in them. He would go back to the office, get them developed, slip them into her in-tray and then head home.

“You know Egbert wants you for this meeting? This afternoon? His assistant told me to remind you?”

Dennis stared into Evelyn’s lined face. He had no knowledge of this meeting - it must have been the note fluttering annoyingly next to his ear for the majority of his journey in the building elevator. He hadn’t brought a tie to work - and the editor was notoriously strict with dress codes. He would have a nervous breakdown if he ever left his neat and tidy office to talk to the mere mortals at their writing desks; lots of short skirts and untucked shirts.

“What’s it about?” Dennis asked, as Evelyn hitched her bag over her shoulder, looking over Dennis’ shoulder at the departing wedding guests.

“Some intern thing. Something about discipline.” She raised her eyebrow suggestively, as if she thought this was some disciplinary hearing - she thought that Dennis was in trouble and he was being punished for some indecent act.

“Suitably vague, thank you.”

“I’d apologise, Dennis,” she said, “but it’s not my business.”

And she disapparated, and left Dennis alone surrounded by tiny flower girls who wanted sherbet lemons.

 

***

 

“Oh, just stop!”

Teddy stared at her - at her long blonde hair, the blue eyes, and the soft sheen of sweat decorating her forehead. Her eyebrows were knitted together in a frown as she stared down, into her glass of lemonade. He could hear her breathing heavily in the evening heat. They had tried to escape it by moving into the cool of the kitchen, but they just couldn’t. Teddy could feel it creep over him now, sticking his shirt to his skin, his palms wet with sweat.

“What?”

Victoire looked up at him then, apologising with her eyes.

“Stop complaining,” she said quietly, “please.”

Teddy scowled. “My whole summer is ruined! Wouldn’t you complain?”

“No, because I would have known that it was my own fault. I would have known that I had done it to myself. It isn’t anybody else’s fault, Ted.”

There it was - the quiet, cold tone of disappointment that cooled the sweat on his forehead. It had been the same when Victoire had opened the door to find him standing there, like she had been waiting for someone more exciting to visit her. Teddy mumbled something about Fred but then the room fell silent.

“I see how it is,” he finally said.

“You do?”

“You’re not on my side.”

Victoire sighed. “You make it very difficult to be.”

They both heard Louis’ cries from upstairs, and Fleur’s worried mumblings and hurried footsteps. Teddy didn’t understand what Victoire was saying, didn’t understand the confused and angry look on her face - he had never associated that with her.

“You haven’t once asked me how my term has got, what _my_ plans are for the summer, what exams I have to revise for, what homework I’ve got, whether I’m seeing anyone, what my friends are doing... anything. You arrived here, waiting for me to get home from school so I can listen to you whine and cry and whine again. You didn’t give me time to unpack, or shower, or change - to breath, really.”

“You said you wanted to see me.” Teddy pouted.

“Because I’m sick of my little sister and my baby brother. I don’t want to have to spend the whole summer looking after them. Even Fred’s been moaning and moping around - he’s truly sorry, you know - and his mum is really angry…” Teddy opened his mouth to answer, but she continued, putting a stop to his grumbling. “I was hoping for some intelligent conversation besides Babbity Rabbity.”

“Her stump doesn’t half cackle,” Teddy replied. He smiled weakly, hoping for her to respond, hoping that he wasn’t in her bad books - that a little joke from their childhood would put it right - but her expression remained stony.

“But instead I come home to you complaining about how you’ve got this wonderful opportunity out of something that you should have been more severely punished for... people would die for a possibility to work at the Prophet. I know I would.”

“That’s because you’re stupid.” Teddy frowned. “Wait... so you think this is good for me? You think, _like Pennyhugh,_ that this will help mould me into some functioning member of the Wizarding society?”

Victoire glared at his sarcastic tone. “I think that will help you realise your potential. There’s more to life than pranking.”

“So you don’t think I’m a functioning member of Wizarding society?”

“I didn’t say that.”

Victoire got up and refilled her glass. She didn’t offer Teddy any.

“I can’t believe you’re against me on this,” Teddy said.

She put the jug down with a rather needlessly aggressive slam. She opened her mouth to speak, but then just stared at him, with something like pity in her eyes - and perhaps more disappointment. He avoided her gaze, and suddenly found the patterns in the tablecloth extremely interesting.

Suddenly he felt disappointed in himself - Victoire was really his only true friend, the constant steadfast of his summers at home, the sometime accomplice at Hogwarts. She had her own friends though, being in a younger year, but she still smiled at him in the corridor, sat with him at dinner. 

He hated to be alone, but other people bored him - all of them, apart from Victoire.

Victoire was stared out of the kitchen window. Her sister was dancing through a sprinkler while her mother laughed. Bill was watching Louis waddle around, his little fat legs almost hidden in the tall grass. Teddy felt a small stab of jealousy - she was watching her family, her mother and her father and her siblings, all alive and well. He remembered the small, framed picture of his parents he had in his bedroom, and he felt different, sadder.

But Teddy pushed the feeling away quickly. He didn’t like sentiment; too clingy, too cloying. He liked pranking and summer holidays and his grandmother. He supposed Harry was all right sometimes, and his children. He had liked Victoire too, he reckoned, but not now, not now that she was suggesting he was unfit to mingle with the rest of wizardkind.

“I suppose you’re going to say that my parents were example citizens, and that they would have been disappointed in me.”

Victoire shook her head, the sun still on her face. “I didn’t know your parents.”

“What, so I should go out there and ask Bill and Fleur what they think Remus and Tonks would have thought of my situation? Ask them all the gory details?”

“Why are we suddenly talking about your parents?”

“You brought it up.”

“I didn’t.”

“You’re an idiot,” he retorted and she scoffed at him.

Another long silence, and Teddy knew the conversation was over. She kept staring out of the window when he said goodbye, and she half-heartedly invited him round for dinner sometime soon. He told her he had plans. As Teddy disappeared into the green flames, he saw her leave through the back door and scoop her baby brother up into her arms.

 

***

 

Dennis rearranged the papers on his desk for the sixth time. Everything was perfect, at right angles, and he had even polished his desk nameplate and put on a tie. Admittedly, he felt constrained and claustrophobic with a bit of material tied around his neck, but it was the thought, and the overly threatening gaze of his boss, that counts.

Now, they were just waiting for the boy.

Apparently, the incident for which the boy was being punished had been in the paper, along with photographs of blackened walls and a professor wearing a bandage under his overly flamboyant hat. Nothing remarkable, Dennis had thought as the editor had forced the paper under his nose, nothing like those Weasley twins. There wasn’t even a displaced brick or a knocked over cauldron.

The editor had slunk out of his office five minutes after the boy was meant to be here. He had an important meeting, and it was crucial that he didn’t miss it, but he had instructed Dennis to sit at his desk and wait.

“You look smart, Dennis,” Bernard croaked from the other side of the booth, not looking up from his picture of a hinkypunk, and Dennis loosened his tie.

He was getting bored. It was already twenty minutes after the beginning of his lunch break, and the boy still had not arrived. He hadn’t been flattered when the editor had decided that Dennis would be a suitable mentor for a delinquent boy, forced into an internship because of his unruly behaviour.

Dennis didn’t understand why he had picked him. Although he has assumed that the boy wouldn’t turn up, he did not know what he would have done with him if he had. Dennis supposed that he would have just followed him around, while Dennis showed him how to take a photograph, develop it, and put it in an in-tray.

He understood why the boy hadn’t turned up. What sixteen-year old would want to give up his summer for this? Why would a sixteen-year old want to spend his summer in an overly hot booth with an old man with a hinkypunk and himself?

“I would give up, Dennis,” Bernard continued. “Go and get a sandwich.”

Dennis slipped his tie off, and grabbed his wallet. Egg and cress, he reckoned.

 


	3. Daring Deeds at Daily Prophet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Teddy Lupin performs daring deeds on first day at Daily Prophet - shows great pranking prowess after previous blunders in Hogwarts dungeon. Hearts broken! Eyes deceived! Exclusive with Editor Egbert on page three!

“So... Teddy, is it?”

“I thought we’d established that.”

Dennis looked at him again, but didn’t make eye contact. The boy had been up late, and slept late - judging from the bags under his bloodshot eyes and his generally disheveled appearance. He was staring at Dennis, his unfocused eyes only half open, breathing heavily in the heat of the small cubicle.

It was hard to believe that this boy was considered some sort of pranking mastermind, that people’s lives had been in danger when he had almost blown up that dungeon, and that, almost remarkably, he had devised some wonderfully imaginative plan to get out of this internship. Looking at the boy now, Dennis wouldn’t have believed that he possessed that sort of ingenuity.

“And is that,” Dennis began, and the boy seemed to jerk awake again at his words. “Is that short for something?”

“Yes.”

“Right.”

“Edward.”

“Hmm...”

“Edward Remus Lupin.”

The two sat in silence after that, and just watched as Bernard shuffled in with some strange chicken-octopus hybrid that squawked and unfolded its eight wings threateningly, showing the suckers on the underside. The boy flinched. 

"I thought your plan was very clever," Dennis said, and the boy looked at him, cautious at the compliment. He raised one eyebrow.

"Thank you," he replied. They fell into an uncomfortable silence and during it, Dennis realized he was meant to be teaching the boy something - but what, he didn’t know.

 

***

 

**3 days earlier:**

"You know how you said that you would kill for an internship at the Daily Prophet?"

Victoire looked up at him, frowning. "You're still going on about this?"

"How about... how about you _actually_ kill me and then take my place? Ooh, ohhh - instead we could get you Polyjuiced up or something, or maybe claim you were at the bad end of a backfired charm..."

Fred interrupted. “There’s a lot of logistics to that: _priori incantatem,_ confirmation from an authority, maybe even a report to say you’re filing charges…”

Teddy deliberately ignored him, and looked down at his notebook again, crossing out the idea. They were at the Burrow, and while the grown-ups were wining and dining around the massive garden table, Teddy had led Victoire and the others into the sun-dappled orchard, where he was busy deliberating his next plan of action concerning the demise and destruction of his summer plans due to some idiotic internship.

No letter had arrived from the Prophet or from Pennyhugh about the fact he had failed to show up at the newspaper. Teddy had waited three days, cautious, knowing that it was too good to be true, until a short, fat man had bustled up to the front door and insisted that he explain himself. Teddy had coughed a couple of times, wiped at his eyes and his nose, and successfully gained the rest of the week to work out what he was going to do.

Victoire sat her baby brother down in her lap and he squealed happily, gurgling and smiling.

"I can't believe you didn't turn up at the Prophet when you were supposed to... _and_ you got away with it," she said. "They should have written to Harry and told them you hadn't shown up. He would have been mad.”

“No, he wouldn’t,” Teddy replied, “they should have sent to Gran... and maybe even Mrs Weasley.”

“They would have been _livid_ ,” Roxanne added, throwing a Quaffle up in the air in front of her face while she lay down in the grass.

Teddy circled something in his notebook, and then hurriedly crossed it out. The entire page was full of ideas and complicated diagrams, all either scribbled out or covered in doodles, and his handwriting was too messy to decipher. He knew that the answer was there, somewhere. He would be able to avoid this stupid internship, and the answer was right under his nose. He was just having some difficulty.

“I just can’t believe that you don’t want to do it. I hate to sound like Hermione, but it’s a great opportunity. I know so many people who love to do it in your place.”

"Yes, but how many people do you think would be interested?" Teddy asked.

"I can think of at least three in my year," Victoire said.

"Jenkins on the Quidditch team said something about it," Roxanne added.

“But I need to think of something else” Teddy said, tearing out the page in his notebook with a dramatic flourish, “how to put those people in my place, I mean - how to get them into the Prophet instead of me. I don’t think there’s...”

And then it hit him. Struck him full in the face like the Knight Bus or a particularly rogue bludger. 

There was a way. 

Victoire stared at him as he opened his notebook once more, and wrote down so much so quickly that his knuckles were white from grasping his pen too hard. Teddy scowled at the paper. His thoughts were moving too quickly for his hand to keep up - new ideas kept popping, new waves of creation crashing over his brain. He struggled to get them all down on paper. He started mouthing, and then muttering ideas to himself, over and over, until Victoire told him to stop.

This was it! He was going to do it! He was going to be free!

"What are you going to do?"

"I need to go to St Mungo's, then Weasley Wizard Wheezes," Teddy began. He stood up so the next sentence proved even more impressive, and he felt mighty majestic as Fred stared up at him and the sunlight flooded the old orchard. "I'm going to get my summer back."

 

***

 

Two boys were sitting in a cafe, both sipping from steaming cups of tea, a piece of chocolate cake sat untouched between them. The cafe was rundown and nearly empty. A girl, chewing gum and playing on her phone, stood behind the till. An old lady frowned at the brightness of one of the boy's coat. It was lime green. The young man didn't seem to care, and seemed to wear it with a sense of pride, rather than with disgust at the garish colour.

The younger boy - wiry and dark haired - slid a fat gold coin across the table to the boy in the green coat. His fingers lingered by the other boy’s hand.

"But this isn't all..." The older boy said, but the other was too fast for him. He had already placed a photo frame - too large to be kept in his jacket pocket - on the table. The old lady frowned again, and pushed her glasses up her nose. She could have sworn she saw the woman in the picture - a pretty woman with red hair, holding what seemed to be a household broom - wave. She blinked. The picture had definitely moved - but it couldn’t have. Maybe her prescription was just faulty. 

The boy with dark hair smirked.

"Now, what do you have to offer?" He said. Green Coat smiled. He pulled a piece of rolled up paper from the inside of his coat and laid it flat upon the table. 

"It's all filled in, backdated and everything," he said quietly. The old lady had to lean awkwardly in order to continue listening to their conversation. "You just need to get your parents to sign here."

"Awkward," the other replied. "They're dead."

"Oh, well..." Green Coat said. "Then I guess... I guess I'm sorry."

"No worries," Wiry answered. He didn't seem to be upset. "Happened when I was small. I can just get my godfather to do it, maybe my grandmother."

"Your legal guardian."

"Yeah." Green Coat took a bite of chocolate cake, and grimaced. “What do you want it for, anyway?”

“Just a bet,” Wiry replied. “Nothing major, just a bit of fun. I have to prove something to my cousin, that’s all. Nobody’s going to get hurt, or anything - just a playful bit of fun. My cousin thinks that I can’t do it, so I have to prove it to her somehow. You know, just a bit of fun.”

The old lady smirked. The boy was obviously up to something. She could tell that he wasn’t very good at lying; he was too fast when he had an answer up his sleeve, and too aggressive when he had to make something up.

“Is this something to do with that dungeon you blew up? I heard about it from my sister.” 

She sat up in her seat, almost teetering on the edge to try and hear now. Wiry had blown up a dungeon? A _dungeon?_ Who had a dungeon these days? And who would then decide to blow that dungeon up?

“Right... well. It better not get back to me,” Green Coat continued. “You’re lucky the healer-in-charge doesn’t like doing paperwork and so gives it to us interns. Confirmation certificates are pretty difficult to come by unless you are actually a...”

“All right, Daniels, I know, I know.”

“I thought you were though... what with your...”

“Yes, well. Obviously, I’m not.”

“But... but this proves you are, so it’s fine.”

The old lady wondered what on earth they were talking about. Green Coat, or Daniels, slid the framed photograph and the big gold coin into the pocket of his coat. He stood up, buttoning up his coat.

“I’ve got to get back, my shift starts in five.”

“Right.”

“I’ll see you around, Lupin. And thanks for the photo, I’m a big fan. She’s so hot.”

Wiry, or Lupin, looked somewhat disappointed at the last comment.

The bell dinged as the café door opened and shut. Lupin ordered another cup of tea, and played absent-mindedly with the piece of dry chocolate cake. He seemed rather lonely, thought the old lady, as she watched him - he seemed to deflate a little while not in the company of others. He took a mouthful of the chocolate cake, grimaced, and forced himself to chew.

“You all right, Mum? Who are you looking at?”

Her daughter sat down opposite her, and ordered a cup of coffee and a piece of cake from the girl behind the till.

“Not the chocolate, darling.”

 

***

 

**WANTED! Are you interested in working at the Daily Prophet? Is your dream to become a journalist, a photographer, or maybe an editor? If so, then the only reason you should in this shop is to sign below!**

**First and one time offer! The Daily Prophet is now offering a weeklong internship to six Hogwarts students. This opportunity may shape your future career and be invaluable to you in terms of connections and experience! They are looking for hard-working, diligent candidates and will not accept anything less than the best. Must be free from the 20** ** th ** **July to the 30** ** th ** **August.**

**NB: applicants should be male - the editor is notoriously sexist**

**NB: applicants must be able to keep a secret - no mucking about**

“There you go,” George Weasley said, beaming, as he tacked the purple poster to the inside of his shop window. “Should get a few people’s attention.”

“Thanks, George.”

“No problem, my man. What exactly is it that you’re up to? I’ve never heard of the Prophet doing work experience.”

“Just a bit of fun, that’s all.”

George frowned. “It isn’t something to do with that dungeon you blew up?”

People had to stop asking Teddy that - yes, it was to do with his punishment, but it was almost as if the dungeon catastrophe was the only thing he was being remembered for. Teddy didn’t want it to be his legacy - it wasn’t even his fault. He’d much rather be remembered for that time he replicated his uncle’s portable swamp, or even that time he stole Slughorn’s crystallized pineapple - he’d rather be remembered for sub-par pranks like that, than for something his cousin messed up.

“Your son blew it up, actually.”

George shrugged. “He’s young, he’ll learn.”

“But you were already smuggling stuff from Honeydukes and stealing your dad’s car and breaking Harry out of Muggle jail when you were fourteen!”

“Those were different times, Ted, there was two of me,” he said smiling reminiscently. “And I didn’t break your godfather out of jail - it was his aunt and uncle’s house.”

“Same difference! There were bars on the windows! And without magic as well.”

“Oh, you know how I love it when you flatter me,” George said, smirking. “But seriously, give Fred time. He’s still learning. He’s got too much of his mother’s work ethic, which is the obvious issue. You’ve got to squash it out of him.”

“How come I’ve got to do it?” A customer bustled in between them, carrying a large stack of Skiving Snackboxes and smart answer quills. Obviously he was preparing for the new school term early on. George moved behind the till.

“You picked him as your successor, he’s your responsibility.”

“He’s your son!”

“And the day Fred listens to a word I say is the day I disown him. He’s too much like his namesake.”

“Does he have any of your genes, then?” Teddy asked, but there was a bang and then a loud shout from the upper floor, and George was already halfway up the stairs.

“Well, obviously he’s very good-looking,” he shouted down.

Teddy sighed. He suddenly felt extraordinarily frustrated. He scowled at a couple of first years that were lurking around the love potions, and they immediately stopped giggling. This whole endeavour was requiring a lot of effort - too much to avoid a punishment for a crime he didn’t even commit. Grabbing a couple of blocks of Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder, Teddy slammed three sickles onto the counter and opened the door to leave.

A couple of serious looking boys were staring at the poster in the shop window. Teddy admired them for a while, but their hair was neatly parted, and their jumpers were tied around their shoulders in a thoroughly stupid way that made Teddy's frown turn into a scowl.

“They’ve already got their applicants,” he said loudly, pointing at the sign. The two boys bustled off.

Teddy bought an ice cream and it made him feel better.

 

***

 

“Hello, I’m Teddy Lupin. I’m here for the internship?”

Dennis looked up from his desk.

The boy was short and stocky, and sported a shock of ginger hair on top of a rather round face. He was wearing a smart suit, and carrying a leather satchel - and looked far too eager and keen for someone who was being forced to come here. He looked too put together, too neat and tidy, for the serial mischief-maker described to Dennis by Pennyhugh.

Dennis knew something was wrong from the start.

“Right. Sit down, then,” he replied.

The boy promptly did so, perching on the very edge of his seat, his hands neatly clasped in his lap.

Dennis stared at him. He didn’t know quite what to do with him now the boy was here, but he couldn’t help but feel this sense of unease. Teddy Lupin was a master pranksman - he’d heard that much from the junior interns who’d been witness to his shenanigans at Hogwarts. Lupin had already skipped a week of his punishment by pretending to be in bed with the flu.

The boy seated in front of him was already flicking through the latest copy of the Prophet.

“So... so you know why you’re here, I guess.”

“Oh, yes,” he replied. “I severely endangered the lives of my teachers and my fellow students, and this is my punishment. This internship will help me focus, and put me back on the right path. I relish the opportunity to help others and work in a team and hone my leadership skills.”

Dennis stared at him - there was no way this was the right boy. He had never seen a picture of Teddy Lupin, but unless the boy had some sort of memory modification charm that had severely altered his personality, this was not the same person.

He pulled a sheet of parchment from his draw, and dipped his quill in the ink.

“What’s your name again? Your full name?”

“Edward Remus Lupin.”

“And your date of birth?”

“6th April, 1998.”

Dennis wrote it all down.

“So what particular potions do you use...”

“What did you use to blow it up?” Dennis said, not looking up from his sheet of paper. “The dungeon, I mean. What did you use to cause so much damage? You were making a potion, and you added the wrong ingredient and it exploded. What ingredient was it?”

The boy frowned. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“It’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

“Well, I... I guess... I think it was an frog spleen - I added it to an infusion of wormwood and rat’s liver, and things went mad.” The boy gave an odd little laugh that seemed to die in his throat. 

Dennis dropped his quill and looked up at him. He had just lied - that, or didn’t know the real answer to the question.

The boy cleared his throat. “I was wondering if, possibly, and only if you’re happy with it, I could learn the basics in a week or so, and then develop my skills from there? It would be really helpful if I got to grips with photograph and editing in this first week, and then tried more challenging stuff after that?”

Dennis ignored him.

“Have you ever made or taken Polyjuice Potion?”

“No, I don’t...”

“Do you know any spells regarding concealment and disguise?”

“Well, I think... no. I don’t.”

“Are you a Metamorphmagus?”

The boy sat up in his seat, suddenly bright-eyed and keen. “Yes! Yes I am! How did you know?”

“I’ll need to see your confirmation certificate,” Dennis replied. “Now.”

He produced a roll of parchment from his leather satchel and handed it to Dennis. There was proof that the boy was a Metamorphmagus. There was a healer’s signature, and there was Lupin’s date of birth. The parchment even had a little wear and tear to it, as if it was actually seventeen years old. Dennis searched for the signature of the parent or guardian, and found it at the bottom.

_Harry Potter._

Dennis stared at the name, scrawled on the dotted line.

“When did your parents die, Lupin?”

“Err... what?”

“It was definitely after you were born, otherwise you wouldn’t be here.”

“Yes, yes...” the boy looked thoroughly confused. “They died in the Battle of Hogwarts, about a month after I was born...”

“So I assume they were both there for your birth,” Dennis said. He sounded spiteful and angry, but really he was just impressed by the true Teddy’s effort to ditch responsibility. “I assume that they would have signed this Metamorphmagus certificate, because they were your parents, and were living and breathing and healthy at the time - am I correct in assuming that?”

“Well, yes. I think so.”

“So why has Harry Potter signed it?”

The boy’s bottom lip began to wobble dangerously. He didn’t even try to explain the mistake, instead rocking backwards and forwards in his chair. He grasped the handle of his satchel furiously.

“I don’t... I don’t know what...”

Dennis raised one eyebrow. The boy asked, gasping, for a glass of water.

“Just tell me what happened,” Dennis said.

 

***

 

“There were six of them,” the real Teddy Lupin explained, digging through a box of peppermint toads.  “They all signed up at Weasley Wizard Wheezes, and I hand-picked them personally. I gave them some schpeel about actually doing work experience, then dropped the bomb later.”

“That they would be part of some elaborate prank?” Dennis Creevey asked, ignoring the toads hopping realistically in his stomach.

“Something like that. All of them were fine with it, and were happy with working here for a week each. William Bogart - the one you met - he would tell all you people that I was a Metamorphmagus, and that’s why I could get away with having six different people be me.”

Dennis nodded. “It’s quite impressive.”

“I had a contact at Mungo’s draw me up a confirmation certificate. Well done for spotting the Harry Potter thing. Bogart was meant to say that we lost the original and got a new one that Harry had signed but he cracked under the pressure and clearly forgot.”

“And are you actually a Metamorphmagus?”

Teddy looked down, and brushed the sugar off his lap, a wry smile playing at his lips. “Afraid not.”

As he picked up another peppermint toad, Dennis admired the boy. He was tall and lean and wiry, with dark hair that fell into his eyes. A ghost of a smirk seemed to constantly play around his lips, and his eyes were bright with the prospect of something new, something exciting. This boy would be constantly on the search for more _fun,_ and Dennis could imagine him leaving behind his friends and loved ones as he got swept up in the anticipation.

“Aren’t you meant to be teaching me something?”


	4. Explosion near Diagon Alley!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Explosion near Diagon Alley injures none, but causes mass destruction, amounting to over a thousand galleons in damages as well as a significant number of memory modifications. Is this the work of a new anti-Muggle organisation, or just a strengthening solution gone wrong? Albert Sommerby investigates, pictures unavailable owing to unfortunate circumstances.

Adebayo Oswald stared down at Dennis Creevey, running his fingers through five o’clock shadow. The lanky man seemed unusually small as he sat, squeezed and folded into the chair opposite, his overly large overcoat draped around him like dark, leathery wings. His pale skin and shadowy eyes reminded Oswald of Muggle depictions of vampires - an article someone had written as a feature but seemed particularly boring.

Oswald’s eye twitched. He should stop thinking about work for at least a second, surely.

It was the third time that week that Creevey had tried to see him. He had been constantly trying to speak to him in the corridor, in team meetings, even over the din of the printer, but no avail. Oswald - a classic example of overworked middle management - had been too busy. 

“The boy is out of control. Really. I think he has resolved to make my life hell.”

“I doubt it’s that serious,” Oswald replied while simultaneously stamping rejection letters and approving photographs - whole stacks of parchment were re-organizing themselves on the table behind his desk, and he saw Dennis’ eyes flick to them. Oswald wanted to listen to him, he really did, and this was the only time he could feasibly do it - but he would have to do it at the same time as several million other things.

“I believe it is, sir,” the dark-haired man responded, eyes wide, “just last week, he asked for my address - said he could send me letters about the internship, request a reference for future employment, but I _knew_ it was for something much more sinister.”

“He was probably just being polite.”

“The boy has blown up a dungeon, fooled people into thinking he was a Metamorphmagus - I now believe he’s going to nag and natter at me until I relent and force him to leave out of annoyance.”

“Dennis...”

“No, sir. Seriously. I figured the boy would be massively apathetic, extremely indifferent... but if anything he is overly enthusiastic, as if he genuinely he wants to be here.”

Oswald paused in his work, stamp raised halfway in the air. Creevey seemed categorically concerned about the boy’s behavior, but Oswald himself had nothing to be concerned about. The boy seemed all right: a little smiley, a little keen, but ultimately nothing that could be misconstrued as a threat. The whole mess regarding the Metamorphmagi was unfortunate, but it was interesting to see what the boy was made of.

“Maybe he had genuinely changed his ways,” Oswald suggested.

“He’s been here a week.”

“And?”

“He’s a seventeen-year old boy. He was a delinquent - is still, I reckon - I highly doubt he’s experienced some sort of epiphany while helping me develop photographs.”

“I don’t know about that, those fumes…”

Oswald shrugged. He clearly wasn’t being helpful. Dennis had shrunk back into his chair and was rolling his eyes, his complaint proforma clutched tightly in his hand. Three paper messages had zoomed in through the open door, and Oswald still had to read and sign off on eight articles, interview three new applicants, and feed the office guinea pig.

“The boy is hindering my carefully balanced and intricately evaluated work schedule and seriously affecting my own work ethic,” Dennis continued and Oswald was tempted to mention how this visit was seriously hindering his own work ethic, but resisted. 

The reaction the boy seemed to incite within Dennis was a far cry from _his_ usually massively apathetic and extremely indifferent workplace behavior. _Maybe_ , Oswald thought, Oswald hoped, _the boy’s ability to rile him up will eventually lead to Dennis doing some actual work._ He knew he was capable of it.

“I’m confused as to where these thoughts have come from - that the boy hasn’t actually done anything that warrants this response…”

“Aside from the identity fraud?” Dennis interrupted.

“… Is everything all right with you, Dennis? How are your parents?”

“I’m fine,” he said, rather aggressively, “they’re fine.”

“And your mum?”

“She’s better, yes.”

“Good. That’s good.”

“That’s nothing to do with this,” Dennis insisted. 

“I’m sure,” Oswald replied, the messages left unattended as he focused on the man in front of him. They would start pecking at him in a minute. Dennis folded his complaint form neatly, and then slid it into an in-tray.

“I think you’ll find my thoughts are completely justified,” he said, oddly quiet and formal. “He’ll cause havoc one day - well, more than he has already.”

“I’ll look out for it,” Oswald replied, smiling. Dennis’ lip twitched, and picked up his rucksack. They stayed in silence for a second or two, aside from the soft, susurrant sounds of the parchment sorting itself. Creevey had taken two steps towards the door before turning back.

“I’ll feed Barry for you,” Dennis said.

“Thank you.” Oswald handed over a bag of guinea pig food from his desk drawer. 

“You’ve clearly got a lot on, so...”

Oswald struggled to ignore the man’s contemptuous tone, and hope that the tickle of Barry’s little whiskers would cheer him up. The door closed just as the paper messages began nipping at his ear.

 

***

 

“But then she was like - and this is the bit that really pissed me off - she was like ‘oh you never give me space to breath’ and ‘you should revel in the opportunity at the Prophet’. Honestly, I really don’t understand what she’s talking about... any of them, really. Girls, right?”

Dennis Creevey scribbled down notes, trying to determine what the editor was actually saying from his spot all the way at the back of the conference room. Teddy Lupin, his self-appointed protégée and newly deemed ‘junior intern’, was whispering constantly into his ear. Something about a girl called Victoire, who was obviously very bright and highly emotionally intelligent.

“And can we assume that the hooded man is the culprit?” Someone asked from the front. 

“Could be a woman,” Meredith blurted out, and someone jeered.

“You see what I mean? Killjoys, the lot of them,” Lupin muttered. He pulled a chocolate bar from his pocket and opened it noisily, the wrapper rustling and causing the people in front of them to turn around and scoff.

“Oh, sod off,” he said in response, chewing it with his mouth open. They faced back to the front as the editor started talking again.

Dennis tried to peer at the grainy photograph being projected onto the wall. It seemed to be the empty shell of a house, with a burnt and dusty lawn and blackened walls, slotted perfectly into a row of perfectly well-ordered houses on either side, with neat picket fences and net curtains.

How this was news, Dennis didn’t know.

“This man - sorry, this _person_ \- was seen leaving the scene. Now, the Law Enforcement Squad are onto it but obviously their engrained incompetence will hinder their process.”

“He’s talking about Hermione Granger! Yeah she’s crazy and all but I definitely wouldn’t say she was incompetent. She’s basically my aunt. Should I say something?” A rustle of chocolate wrapper and the indescribably disgusting sound of Lupin chewing entered Dennis’ personal bubble.

Dennis ignored him. He hadn’t written any notes and was worrying that he may have missed out on something important because of the boy’s nattering. It had been consistent since the day he had _actually_ arrived, and Dennis doubted whether his apparent alias would have been this chatty. Dennis had always preferred peace and quiet, especially after Colin went.

The editor continued.

“The house was a stone’s throw from Diagon Alley. We should be the ones to ensure that the story is told correctly and that you have a grasp of our readership’s level of intelligence. I want someone over at the crime scene, take a photographer with you, and then someone at the Law Enforcement office pestering them about leads.”

“What’s he trying to say about level of intelligence? I read the Prophet and I’m not stupid,” Lupin said, wiping his mouth free of chocolate. “I mean, I’m what most people would call ‘bright’, but I like to focus on other things, you know, stuff I’m good at. Rather than ready things. Books and that. Don’t like them much.”

“Please be quiet,” Dennis said. If the boy carried on like this, then the editor or someone nearby would single him out to go to the crime scene and take the photos, and Dennis wasn’t feeling up to it. In fact, he felt like taking a nap.

“What now? Merlin, you sound like Victoire. Always trying to put me down, that’s the issue with you lot. Always going on and on about how important it is to be polite and nice and respectful, or something. Gran said that I’d learn respect here, but all I’m learning about is how little _you_ actually do any work and the intricacies of underground smuggling rings. Only the latter is important for my possible future field of work.”

“Lupin, come on now...”

The people in the row in front were turning around again, flashing dangerous glances in their direction, and Dennis wanted to shrink back into the wall. The boy just seemed to carry on, kept on gabbling, kept on spouting out all this nonsense, and people were starting to notice.

“First they insult Hermione and now they insult my level of intelligence? I should walk out right away - in fact, I might. I’m failing to learn anything anyway. What’s the point of wasting my summer doing this... and isn’t this what I’ve been saying all along? If anything, I’m exceedingly clever.”

And this was his other elaborate scheme so he could get himself kicked out of the office - and Dennis would let them. He wouldn’t have time to nap or take long lunch breaks or read his comics if he had to continue keeping this boy in check. Maybe he would just have to wait until they actually found a story that would keep the boy’s attention occupied, or wait until he got bored and became slow and lethargic and easier to handle.

“There have also been new sightings of banned flying carpets. A link between this increase and the prevalence of smuggling rings has been made, but there has been no evidence to solidify the claim, nor disprove it. They’re pretty stuck.”

The old projector clinked and churned into life as the editor pointed his wand at it, and a picture of a night sky flashed up onto the white wall behind, flickering occasionally. There were two black squares seemingly floating against the dark blue.

“That doesn’t show anything!” Lupin exclaimed. “Could be square owls.”

“I think I just grasped the level of _your_ intelligence.”

“I resent that,” the boy retorted. 

“Aah, yes. I forgot,” Dennis said. “You’re the mastermind that blew up a dungeon.”

“That was not my fault.”

“You still got the blame for it, and are being punished for it. I think that implies some sense of stupidity - that you were able to get _caught._ ”

“Oh, because nobody’s ever made a mistake and got caught,” Teddy replied, and the person in front of them turned around to see what was going on.

“That’s a completely invalid point, Lupin. Blowing up a dungeon is a whole other league of misguided action compared to, say, eating the last biscuit or telling someone the wrong surname.”

“Or talking too loudly during a meeting. Creevey, what is going on?”

Everyone was staring at them, and the picture of the square owls was still flickering. The editor was tapping his wand on the table, waiting, apparently patiently, for Dennis and the boy to finish their _discussion._

“Nothing, sir,” Dennis said, straightening his tie, eyes downward.

“And Lupin? Are you settling in all right?”

People actually stood up at the front rows so they could see the boy, and try and catch a glimpse of Harry Potter’s godson. Dennis supposed that not many of them had actually seen him before - perhaps had been introduced to his alias on that first day, but not actually born witness to his greatness.

“Oh, yes,” he replied. “I severely endangered the lives of my teachers and my fellow students, and this is my punishment. This internship will help me focus, and put me back on the right path. I relish the opportunity to help others and work in a team and hone my leadership skills.”

Someone sniggered. The boy kept his head high.

“Very well,” the editor continued. “You two can go to the crime scene. Take Sommerby with you. I’m sure it’ll be an interesting experience for you.”

Another person elected himself or herself to visit the Aurors, but Dennis couldn’t tell who it was as Lupin was once again whispering in his ear. People stood up and started gathering their things, and started leaving the room. The workday was starting.

“What does that mean? Are we actually doing work today?”

Dennis glared at him. It was the boy’s own fault.

 

***

 

Teddy Lupin made his way though the rubble, picking up various shiny things, evaluating their usefulness, then throwing them away if he deemed them redundant. So far he had found a delicate china teacup, miraculously unharmed, a silver necklace he thought he could give to Victoire, and a few knuts hidden amongst the bits of brick and plaster.

“You know you shouldn’t really be touching anything,” Sommerby said, wheezing through the clouds of dust and the various bits of wreckage. His Quick Quotes Quill fluttered near his shoulder as he eyed the torn carpet and a broken mirror.

Teddy ignored him.

“Really, Lupin - you’ll compromise the integrity of the crime scene.”

“And you’re compromising the integrity of my happiness. Leave me be.”

Sommerby scoffed, his many chins wobbling. His short, stout legs attempted to step over a grandfather clock that had fallen over, and there was a disconcerting ripping sound. Teddy laughed. Creevey mumbled something inconceivable. The older man had been downbeat and grumbling for a week now, and Teddy knew his plan was working.

Oswald, or Egbert, or someone, had promised him adventure. Victoire had said it would be eye opening, interesting work. Pennyhugh had guaranteed him important life skills and valuable work experience. _I must be doing something wrong then,_ Teddy thought, jokingly, _I must be underestimating the exhilarating thrill of watching Creevey nap for hours at a time._

So far, throughout this whole week, he had been outside Creevey’s office only a couple of times to fetch him a cup of tea. The rest of the time had been spent in the red light of the dark room, brewing potions and soaking in the slightly dubious fumes. Creevey would come back from an assignment, pass him the camera, and settle himself in the chair.

But this was different: the explosion site was genuinely one of the most fascinating places he had ever been. The house had just been completely erased from the terraced street, leaving a modicum of rubble and rubbish on the floor. 

“What was that, Mr. Creevey?”

The man crept out from his hiding place, long overcoat sweeping the ground.

“I’ve taken the photos,” he said, tapping his camera. “We should go.”

“But we’ve just got here! Can’t I take some photos? I’ve noticed the light in here is particularly good, and - ”

“That’s because there isn’t a roof,” Creevey replied. Sommerby chuckled, his great belly wobbling. “Come on, let’s go.”

“We’ve been here five minutes! I’ve actually picked up on a few things - Sommerby, you might want to take notes - the way the explosion happened, I mean, just working with the selective area... it really reminds me of something...”

“Riveting stuff, I’m sure, Lupin...” Creevey piped up. He was moving towards Teddy now, wanting to apparate back to headquarters.

“That smell,” the boy continued, and he ran his finger along the wall of the next house, picking up a trace of light purple dust. “Yes, I thought so - this dust, this residue, it’s the same as the one that Fred made. They used a mixture of Ashwinder egg, wormwood fusion and rat’s liver - well, that’s what I did, anyway,” Teddy carried on, and Sommerby was nodding. The reporter was breathing heavily in excitement.

“What are you suggesting? That someone found inspiration in your great, _great_ work?”

“No, really! The dungeon - the dungeon _I_ blew up - it took out the structure, just like this. The damage only came from where the classroom above fell in. That’s how Professor Dunderton hit his head, if you remember. He came and shouted to me about how it would limit his teaching skills but, if you ask me, he was already well limited in that department...”

“Oh, just stop!” Creevey said - and Teddy was fleetingly reminded of how disappointed Victoire would be if his plan actually succeeded, and she knew that he had purposefully walked out on ‘such an important opportunity’. 

_Screw her_ , he thought. _I do what I want._

“Just a couple of photos, Mr. Creevey - the angles here, with the broken shards of mirror...” Teddy leaned across for Teddy’s camera, tugging at the strap around his neck.

“No, Lupin, really...”

“I think it would work! Front page material, honestly.” He pulled again at the camera strap, but Creevey kept a firm grip.

“They need us back at the office.”

“Like hell they do,” Teddy retorted quickly, his fingers tightening around the camera strap. “Just one then - just one photo, and then I promise we’ll head back.”

“No!"

Creevey stepped backwards, and his foot landed on an unstable piece of plaster. He fell, almost in slow motion according to Teddy, his black coat flapping with the motion. The strap snapped as Teddy continued to grip it, but in his shock he let go, and the camera soared passed Sommerby’s gaping mouth and his huge bulbous stomach, wrapped in yellow tweed, and landed with a soft crunch on top of the still-ticking grandfather clock.

Steam, or smoke, or something, steamed from a hole in its side.

This had been an unexpected twist in Teddy’s plan. He had decided that talking and nattering and generally being annoying would drive Creevey to madness, and inevitably result in his dismissal from the Prophet and a summer free to do as he pleased. He had thought about whether this psychological warfare was worth it, and he deemed it worthy - whether it would affect Creevey in any way hadn’t come into it.

But now, as the camera sizzled gently on the old wood, the flash going off at odd times, he felt different. A lump of something indescribable had settled itself in his chest, and he coughed several times to try and get it out - he felt sick to his stomach suddenly, and he couldn’t look at Creevey.

The dark-haired man pulled his wand from his pocket, and for one moment, Teddy thought he was going to curse him. He looked quite dramatic, standing in the rubble, wand out, coat flapping around his ankles. _It would have made a good picture,_ Teddy reckoned, _had Creevey not dropped the camera_.

Instead, he turned on the spot and apparated away with a loud crack.

The sound left was the whistle of the wind through the exposed floorboards, and the heavy sound of Sommerby’s breathing.

“It was his brother’s camera, you know,” the fat man said.

Teddy nodded mutely. He rubbed his chest experimentally, to see whether it eased the odd feeling that was building up inside him.

 

***

 

“I suppose congratulations are in order, then,” Victoire said, but Teddy ignored her.

He had arrived home that afternoon, light and carefree and excited to see what the rest of his holiday would bring him aside from the disapproving looks from his grandmother. He was relieved, happy that he had finally succeeded with his scheme and could now dedicate his free time to something much more worthwhile.

But as Teddy had picked at the sandwich his grandmother had made for him, he had thought that the feeling would last longer.

Teddy had pulled out his notebook, searching for the newspaper clipping - they had written about it in the Prophet, complete with a photo of him looking rather shifty (although his hair looked all right) and a picture of the devastated dungeon. Anyone could have known how to do it.

As the skies darkened and he trooped along the winding path towards Shell Cottage, he couldn’t help but think about that purple dust - about how the perpetrator used his exact method. Fred had obviously been onto something.

“You got what you wanted, didn’t you?”

Teddy twiddled with the screwdriver, and the back panel of Creevey’s camera fell open, along with a barrage of smoke that stung at his eyes and hit the back of his throat. It gave him an excuse to not talk about what had happened that afternoon.

“I got you a necklace,” he said, coughing slightly, and handed her the silver chain, still looking at the damage inside the camera.

“That’s sweet of you,” she said, and Teddy felt the tickle of hair on his arm as she swept it to one side to secure the fastening at the back of her neck. “I think Audrey has one like it.”

Teddy turned to look at her. “Maybe I should take it back then.”

“No, no,” she said gently. “I like it.”

She smiled at him then, and it was one of those unexpected blasts of Veela charm that always unsettled him, and sometimes made him think of her in a different context, where she wasn’t just another one of his quasi-siblings.

The camera made a strange gurgling noise, and his attention was drawn back to it. A small wire inside the camera was leaking green fluid that smelt oddly acidic, and he pulled on his dragon-hide gloves to deal with the issue.

“It’s nice that you’re fixing it.”

“It wasn’t my fault that it broke,” Teddy insisted.

“I believe you,” she replied.

He snapped the lead back into place, and dabbed at the split substance with a tissue, which promptly dissolved. The camera whirred happily on the table, and the flash stopped going off at odd intervals. He picked up the screwdriver and fastened the panel back into place. He repaired the strap with a wave of his wand.

“How are you going to get it back to him?”

Teddy paused for a second, then - “I’m going back tomorrow. I’m not going to leave.”

It was a decision he had made on the walk from Tinworth. He would get to the bottom of this whole explosion malarkey, once and for all. He had scribbled little notes in his notebook, ideas and theories and questions he should ask. He had attempted to fix the camera in the hope that Creevey had taken a photo of something that Teddy hadn’t picked up on.

Teddy would... he would also apologise for his actions.


	5. Bungled Potion to Blame for Bomb

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Experts investigating the explosion near Diagon Alley yesterday have ruled the cause as potion malfunction. While Muggle policemen follow different leads, Law Enforcement attempt to search for the home-owners. More information on proper potion handling on page five.

“And I remember, during the War, having to hide with my cousins in Dublin, and that was really where I got into the whole magizoology shindig. Extremely fascinating creatures over there, yes… some of them native, but quite a few invasive species that have really flourished in the climate over there. I supposed you’ve heard of Luna Lovegood?”

“Yes, Bernard.”

“Some of my research went onto influence some of her work, actually. Snorkack migration tracks go straight through the southern Republic, quite remarkable creatures. And you’ve never seen a Snorkack?”

“No, Bernard.”

The old man leant backwards, his bones positively creaking, and rummaged in his desk drawer. He pulled out a pair of heavy, thick-lensed glasses that made his eyes appear twice the size. Bernard continued to pick at the lock on the cage as Teddy watched. The boy was unsure whether he wanted Bernard to be successful - he was interested in whatever was locked inside, but also mindful of the small explosions that seemed to be occurring within.

Teddy, in an unprecedented spurt of efficiency, had arrived at work early. The repaired camera was in his bag and, for once, finally in keeping with Egbert’s strict dress code, had worn one of his father’s old ties. He had found it in the box on the top of his wardrobe, and had spent a bizarre afternoon staring at pictures of his parents and himself as an infant. 

Victoire had wanted to talk about it, but he had found himself lost for words.

“Do you know when Creevey is going to get here?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Dennis is a bit sporadic with his time-keeping. Sometimes he goes to an assignment before work, if it’s closer to home than here.” The old man leant over, and plucked a memo out of Creevey’s overflowing inbox. “No, no… he hasn’t got any work until two o’clock, so he should be in any minute now.”

“Brilliant.”

Something snapped, and Bernard swore. He withdrew his broken lock pick and repaired it with a wave of his wand.

“He isn’t going to be very happy with you, son,” Bernard said, peering at Teddy over the top of his spectacles. “Sommerby told me about what happened with his camera, and I know it was very special to him. He didn’t come back to work after what happened yesterday.”

Teddy remained silent. 

“It was his brother’s camera, you know.”

“So people keep saying.”

Bernard looked at him for a long while before returning to his work. “I suppose it’s not my place to tell you. It’s Dennis’ decision, and I doubt that he’d be very happy if I shared that kind of stuff with you.”

“Why? What stuff?”

Bernard didn’t reply. If there was any chance that Teddy’s mentor at the Prophet was somehow exciting, Teddy wanted to know. Maybe his brother was actually a daring adventurer, whose camera had captured pictures of extremely rare creatures that Bernard hadn’t even heard of, or had been long thought extinct. Maybe his brother was an undercover Auror, and the camera hid undeveloped clues as to the location of a stolen emerald worth millions of galleons. Maybe, just maybe, Creevey’s brother was a world famous Quidditch player playing under a pseudonym, and the pictures would reveal his identity.

Teddy wanted Bernard to tell him about ‘that kind of stuff’. If Bernard had willingly shared the boring story about Snorkacks, then he should be itching to tell Teddy about Dennis’ charismatic brother and his sensational adventures. Or maybe that was the issue, that the adventures weren’t exciting at all, or maybe they were sad.

“Well, I fixed the camera, if that makes a difference,” Teddy said, somewhat put out. “Not that it was my fault that it broke, or anything like that.”

“Well, that’s very kind of you.”

“I also wanted to talk to him about writing a story, you know, journalism style,” Teddy said, and Bernard chuckled, and pulled the lamp closer to get a better look at the lock he was still trying to open. 

“I’m unsure whether we have that kind of authority, son. He’s a photographer for the society pages, and I cover wildlife. We don’t have that much sway when it comes to investigative journalism.”

“But it’s relevant, people would want to know. It’s about that explosion yesterday, the one we went to photograph? I’ve had some ideas about it.”

“They’ve ruled it as a potion malfunction, son,” Bernard replied, but Teddy was still skeptical. “But if you’ve got any information, then you should go to Law Enforcement.”

“They aren’t that substantial, as theories go, I need to…”

“Then you probably shouldn’t be having ideas of publishing them in Wizarding Britain’s leading broadsheet, should you?”

Several things then happened at once. Teddy gave a grunt of indignation at Bernard’s sharp words. The cage lock clicked open with a satisfying thunk. The office door opened simultaneously, and Creevey stood in the doorway. Then whatever was lurking in the cage gave another small eruption, and bright orange liquid spurted across the room, covering the desk and the newly repaired camera, spattering Teddy’s tie, and hitting Creevey square in the face.

“Oops, sorry Dennis. Bit of a malfunction there.” Bernard closed the door to the cage.

“It wasn’t my fault!” Teddy exclaimed, quickly standing up. Creevey looked at him coolly, and withdrew his wand from his coat pocket. For the second time in two days, Teddy thought the older man might hex him, but instead he flicked his wand, and the orange pus evaporated.

There was a long, silent moment, and Teddy wondered whether he should speak again, or maybe sit down. Bernard replaced his glasses in the drawer, and his eyes returned to their normal size. Dennis moved to sit in his chair. Teddy quickly moved out of his way, and started his pitch.

“I’ve had some ideas, you know, about the bomb site yesterday. I know they think they’ve solved it, but…”

“Bernard, have we had any messages?”

Bernard blinked and looked from Teddy to Creevey. “I don’t… yes. Just that one on top.”

“I definitely think someone used my work as inspiration, a copy cat explosion,” Teddy went on. “I went back and looked at some of my notes, and I’m going to go and talk to my cousin, who actually made the mistake, but I reckon it’s very similar.”

“Bernard, do you know where Bishop Cannings is? Is that Somerset? I’m meant to be there this afternoon.”

“I think it’s in…”

“The key factor is that Fred and me weren’t _meant_ to make that potion, weren’t _meant_ to blow anything up in that way. I was initially trying to follow another, Ministry-approved potion, a stink-bomb thing. So to recreate our exact mess of a substance would be difficult, right? Unless they had reported it in the paper, and someone thought ‘hello, that’s a good way of destroying evidence’, right?”

“I think I’m going to get a cup of coffee,” Creevey continued, as if Teddy wasn’t there. “Bernard, want anything?”

“You’re not listening to me!”

“Look, son…” Bernard started, but Creevey interrupted him.

“I’m not interested in anything you have to say, Lupin,” he said, still looking at the camera. His voice was low and quiet, and spoke as if he had rehearsed it. “I reported you to Oswald, and I think that they’ll let you go, finish this internship, whatever. I don’t know what that means for you. I don’t know whether you’ll be allowed you take your exams next year.”

“But…”

“The Law Enforcement Squad have got their answer. Go to them, or the Aurors even, if you think your theories have any credit, which I doubt. You’re barking up the wrong tree.”

Teddy was confused as to what he had done wrong. The only crime he could be linked to explicitly had been the breaking of the damned camera, and that had been followed by some obscene overreaction. He shouldn’t have to apologise for that; Creevey was as much to blame for breaking his own toy as Teddy. It was like the dungeon explosion all over, with Teddy being blamed for the mistakes of another. And he had worn a tie today.

Teddy also didn’t have to apologise for acting the way he did, for behaving as if he didn’t want to be here. He supposed he could take some blame for the minor identity fraud he committed, but they should have expected it. He _didn’t_ want to be here. Teddy hadn’t wanted to waste his summer lounging around in the tiny, sweltering office apparently learning transferable workplace skills. If anything, they should apologise for dragging him here. 

But it was different now, Teddy could feel it. It felt less like a school assignment and more like something - and he balked a bit as he thought about it - more like something he could be interested in. He remembered the small swell of pride at the bomb site, when he had discovered that someone else had copied _his work._

“What if I can prove it? What if my ideas do have credit?”

Creevey looked at him then, and he looked tired. “Then, well done.”

Teddy nodded, convincing himself more than anyone else. He’d talk to Fred first, get some things straight. He’d need to stay at the Prophet, unfortunately, for the untapped resource of records and contacts, and he knew Egbert wouldn’t refuse an advertising deal with Weasley Wizard Wheezes, not that they needed it. He’d keep Teddy on for a full-time job for a chance at an exclusive with Ginny Weasley, Holyhead Harpies legend.

“All right, then.”

Bernard coughed. The thing in the cage spluttered.

“Bye.”

Teddy was almost out of the door, when he turned and placed the repaired camera on the desk in front of Creevey.

“You’re welcome,” Teddy said.

 

***

 

Fred liked Teddy, no matter what his cousins said. He had lurked in the cosy corners of the Hufflepuff common room to make sure he had a place on the next great adventure; he had spent summers acting out various Beedle tales in streams and woodlands, his knees grazed and face covered in mud, adorned with grass stains; and Fred had been there in the end, in the dungeon with Teddy, when everything had gone to pot.

His sister wasn’t happy, she had tutted and scoffed, but then Fred struggled to remember a time when Roxanne had felt voicing her opinion wasn't necessary. James had laughed at the news, and kept laughing, and Fred felt himself blush. The others were too young to even understand anything. But Teddy was different, older, not of the clan. They balked at his too loud manner, the unceasing clumsiness, how nothing could wait. Only Victoire was different.

But Fred enjoyed this energy, and the distraction it provided from his haughty twin and James’ Quidditch trivia. It had made him say yes to being his partner in crime on numerous occasions. Even when Billy Stafford had assured Fred that Teddy had already asked everyone in the Gobstones club to be his lieutenant, Teddy’s contagious excitement and Fred’s growing pity for him had swayed his judgment. Not to mention the Weasley twin legacy.

Fred looked up from his notebook to see Teddy lolloping across the lawn from the Burrow towards him. It was difficult to forget Teddy’s face, shining with anticipation and a wide-eyed insistence that Fred was most definitely the only candidate considered, the most perfect fit.

He could understand how his cousins felt, but only sometimes.

The owl had arrived at six that morning, squawking and tapping at the window, and Fred had rolled out of bed to answer. _It’s an emergency!_ The letter had explained. _It’s a matter of life and death!_

As Fred set up a small wall of crates and gathered the potion ingredients and did the sums, he wondered whether he was mourning the death of his precious free time, or his sanity.

“I can’t remember how long it took to react in the dungeon,” Fred began, jotting down some more calculations as Teddy lumbered over. “But I think - in conjunction with Golpalott’s Second Law - that it should take as long as the main compound takes to oxidise. In this case, I think it’s the Ashwinder yolk that does the trick…”

A haze of light purple dust mushroomed in the evening sun. The middle crate disappeared with a slight sucking sound, and the others collapsed around the empty space.

“So that crate was the dungeon?”

“Yes. And the house. The bomb site.”

“Ashwinder eggs are rare, Freddy,” Victoire chimed in. “Where did you find it?”

“Dad’s got some for inventing and the like. Asked him for it last night. I think he was happy to give it me because he thought I was using it for some nefarious purpose.”

“As opposed to solving a crime.”

“Correct.”

“He’s going to be so disappointed when you get 12 OWLs.”

“The pranking lifestyle is not sustainable in this current job market.”

“Well,” Victoire replied. “ _Some_ of us got job opportunities out of it…”

“So the rubble and stuff in the dungeon, that was from…” Teddy interjected.

“The surrounding structure. The room above, essentially. There was no counterpart with the house, because obviously there was nothing above it,” Fred answered. “What I’m wondering is how they increased the scope of the potion - why it didn’t just take out the living room, for example, but instead took out the whole house.”

“And are you working on that? On figuring that out?”

Fred felt a sting of indignation. “Do we need to? It’s clear they copied the formula. Ingredient for ingredient.”

“ _My_ formula,” Teddy corrected, and leapt over the wall to inspect the results more closely. Fred and Victoire looked at each other, but still obediently followed the older boy into the orchard.

“So what did Creevey say about it?”

Teddy kicked at a stray crate. “He didn’t say anything. He believes the Law Enforcement Squad’s drivel about potion malfunction. I don’t think he wants me to come back.”

“That’s what you wanted though,” Fred said, “to have your summer back.”

“But now it’s important I find out who is using my formula without proper recognition or sufficient payment. I’m going to ask your dad about intellectual property rights.”

“You’re not serious,” Fred said.

“Fine. _Our_ formula. I provided the ingredients and you put them in wrong.”

“So you’re not going to hand this over to Law Enforcement?” Fred asked. “You’re going to track them down yourself?”

“They’ve got records at the Prophet I can use.”

“But what if they’re dangerous?”

“Then I’ll be sure to tell them that Harry Potter is my godfather and he’s taken down several dark wizards before and would probably be happy to take out a few more.”

“I’m being serious,” Fred replied, forever failing to counter with quippy one-liners.

“So am I,” Teddy retorted.

“They blew up a house!”

“So?”

Fred struggled with what to say next. Victoire had wandered off into the orchard; she usually had the most sway with Teddy when he was in moods like this, after years of dealing with his temperamental ways. Fred considered calling after her, but the thought was interrupted by the sound of Teddy tripping over a crate and his muffled swear words.

He imagined how intolerable it would be to be looked upon with  such pity as he was doing to Teddy. 

“Ashwinder eggs are difficult to get a hold of,” Fred said, his voice soft. “Ashwinders are endangered. You need a license from the Ministry and they are usually imported from abroad so there isn’t a black market for them here.”

Teddy looked up at him, dry grass in his hair. “What?”

“They’ll be records. If someone were to use Ashwinder eggs in a potion or to breed, for example, the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures would have a list of suppliers and buyers.”

“We could find out who bought them.”

Fred nodded.

Teddy scrambled to his feet, dusting himself down. “It’s a place to start.”

“You’re welcome, Teddy,” Fred said.

“Yeah, well, you did owe me.”

“Please be careful.”

“Yes, Mum.”

“I’ll come with you, if you want.”

“And mess up again? No, thank you.”

Fred rolled his eyes, exasperated. He had apologised profusely for his actions at the end of term, but Teddy hadn’t listened. His mum had punished him too - the Gobstones Club were disappointed that he couldn’t go to the regional competition anymore - but Fred’s academic performance and quiet demeanour were enough for him to get away with a warning from his Head of House.

He had tried his best to say that it had been his fault, that Teddy had planned some harmless prank, that it was Fred’s poor potion skills that had caused the damage, but they didn’t believe him, and had sent him off with a warning not to fraternise with the Lupin boy again.

Staring at the filing cabinets in the caretaker’s office, Fred had imagined how many of the files had his father’s name written all over them, serving as evidence of the substantial legacy he and Fred’s namesake had left, and that Fred had difficulty committing to. It probably only rivalled that of Teddy’s father and his friends.

“I’m sorry,” Fred said, for the umpteenth time.

“Right.”

Fred swept the lilac dust in a glass vial, and handed it to Teddy. “It might be useful to have this. They probably have some specialists at the Prophet that could take a look.”

He began to stack the crates up, but Teddy waved his wand and they flew into a neat pile and he levitated them towards the wall, and back towards the house. Fred followed him cautiously - this helpful gesture signalled some sort of truce, but he didn’t know how delicate it was.

Teddy had a long way to go before he would find the person responsible for the bomb site, a long way to go before he could collect the correct ‘dues’ owed to him. The records at the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures could be a dead end, but to make sure, Fred would tell Uncle Harry to keep an eye on him.

And as Teddy tripped over a mole hill and the crates scattered around him, Fred realised that might be a more difficult task than expected.

 

***

 

“Hello?”

The room was deathly quiet, and Teddy was hounded (and not for the first time) by a desire to shout as loud as he could, to cause a complete racket. He stared up at the huge, towering bookshelves, filled with boxes of files and documents, copies of magazines and books, photo frames and reels of film. His fingers tingled. Imagine the calamity if he were to push one of them over, and send the rest toppling in its wake.

He dinged the bell again, the sound echoing in the vast room.

“Anyone here?”

“Yes.”

The reply came too quickly and too close, and Teddy reeled backwards, threatening to push over a huge, antique globe with various pins stuck in it. A young woman had appeared out of the shadows, a quill behind one ear and her wand behind the other, with her hands filled with dusty copies of the Prophet.

“I need access to some records.”

“Then why are you in the records room?” The woman replied scathingly, dumping the newspapers on her desk and turning to face him. She had a strong jaw and deep set eyes, and her plain clothes were covered in dust and ink.

“I… ugh…”

“Have you filled out a request form?”

“Well, I don’t… a form?”

She entered the centre of the circular desk and pulled a sheet of parchment from an in-tray.

“Sign this. Do you have your Prophet identification?”

Teddy rummaged in the depths of his rucksack, hoping that Creevey hadn’t had it deactivated in some way. He pulled the card out, wiped it free of chocolate frog innards, and handed it over. The woman looked at him scathingly.

“What are you, twelve?”

“Hogwarts internship.”

“The Lupin boy.”

“That’s the one.”

“More like community service,” she said, peering over his request form, and Teddy felt a little nervous. “What do you want with Ashwinder eggs?”

“I don’t want anything,” Teddy said quickly. “Bernard sent me on an errand.”

“Bernard from wildlife media?”

“Spot on.”

“That’s the second time this week.”

She watched him sign the sheet, and snatched it out from under his hand before the ink could even dry. She stamped it - needlessly aggressively, in Teddy’s opinion - and signed it herself.

“You’ll need to wait a couple of minutes while I send this to the Ministry. I’ve got some permanent records, but they’re old and probably not what you’re looking for.”

“Right.”

“You’re welcome,” the young woman snapped, rolling the form into a tight scroll and sliding it into a cylindrical case. She then ascended a small stepladder, and slotted the case into the end of a series of pneumatic tubes that hung from the ceiling. The case containing the request form disappeared with a satisfying _shlurrrrp._

Teddy leant against the desk, and the record keeper sat in her chair, feet on the table, a copy of _Martin Miggs, the Mad Muggle_ between her ink stained features.

“So how long do you think…”

“I said a couple of minutes, didn’t I?”

Teddy drummed his fingers on the desktop.

_“_ You read _Martin Miggs_?”

“You don’t?”

“I do, but I didn’t realise…”

“What, that girls could be interested in comics?”

“No,” Teddy replied, and he found his patience with this woman - already short because of Creevey, because of Fred’s patronising looks - dwindling. He looked again at the pneumatic tubes, which were shaking and reverberating, before replying. “I just didn’t think you were allowed to read comics during office hours.”

The tubes rattled. The record keeper lifted her feet off the desk, and put her comic to one side. The tubes were shaking and causing a din, and a container shot out of the end, which the young woman caught easily.

“Here.”

Her scathing tone did not warrant a response, and Teddy snatched the records out of her hands and pried the tube open. The records were tightly furled, and they were lots of them, and Teddy scrambled through them immediately. The woman was muttering at him.

“So, what did you do to this dungeon, then?”

The accounts detailed the suppliers and buyers of Ashwinder eggs across the country in the past year. Sorted by county, Teddy skipped to Greater London - the explosion had occurred near Diagon Alley, and so he had assumed the potion was made nearby. 

“There was this boy at school, who decided he was a bit of prankster. Everyone thought he was so cool, so funny… but he was definitely average at best.”

St. Mungo’s was on the list, also Slug and Jiggers. Various other apothecaries were there, alongside private potioneering companies, magizoological institutions, and a couple of crates to Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes. Everything seemed legitimate. Orders were shipped in bulk, to authentic buyers, and the eggs were listed as frozen and unfrozen.

“He tricked my… my friend… into using gnome poo as a face mask. Don’t know what he was getting at, my… her skin was still dry. So immature.”

Teddy gripped the parchment in his hands. Something was expanding in his chest, and his cheeks flushed. He should have expected nothing, like he normally did; he should have expected nothing, and then would have been proven right or  been pleasantly surprised. Teddy had got increasingly excited about finding some answers, about working out the clues. Bloody Fred.

He had the chance to back out, to slink away, and he didn’t. Teddy had told people - Victoire, Fred, even James - of his plans, and now he would have to return to the Burrow and tell them that it hadn’t worked out. He also assumed that Fred had told his godfather by now.

And he would have to redouble his efforts to get fired from the Prophet again, which went more time and more energy and possibly even a share of his pocket money.

“You work with Dennis, don’t you?” The record keeper was babbling, twirling her hair around one finger. “You don’t know whether he’s… err… taken, do you?”

Teddy turned to face her, and she stopped talking at once, her hair back in place. He put the sheath of documents back in her in-tray.

“Nothing new?” She asked, peering at the top sheet. “That’s what I thought. Not that long since these records were requested.”

Teddy glanced at her.

“What?”

“Sommerby looked at the same files yesterday.”

The fat man in the yellow tweed wobbled across his mind’s eye.

“Did he?”

“That’s what I said, isn’t it?”

A spark ignited.

Sommerby had been at the bomb site with them. He had been the investigative journalist assigned to the story, and he had tottered around the rubble while Teddy had voiced ideas about the origin of the purple dust, of his potion. He had ripped his trousers.

Teddy’s heart started thumping enthusiastically against his chest.

“Why didn’t you tell me that earlier?”

“Gee, I don’t know, you young, unqualified man.”

She siphoned through a draw of record requests and pulled out a sheet of parchment. And there is was, Sommerby’s loopy, cursive signature, asking for the very same information.

“But this changes everything!”

“What does Bernard want with Sommerby? With Ashwinders?”

“Oh… just… something to do with… err…” Teddy scooped up the papers, holding them close, and packing his Prophet identification and his wand in his bag. “Protection laws… the wildlife… stuff.”

The dowdy record keeper stared at him. And Teddy stared back. He doubted that this young woman - trapped as she was in this cave of forgotten stories, of old memorabilia, of yellowed and fading newspaper articles - would follow up with Bernard, or the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures.

He glanced at the copy of _Martin Miggs, The Mad Muggle_ laying on the desktop, at the overflowing in-tray of record requests, the three or four flying paper messages circling the twisting tentacles of the pneumatic tubes. He watched as one flittered too close, and got sucked up into the unknown.

She wouldn’t have time - or the will, or the energy, judging from her lacklustre appearance, or the quantity of unwrapped comic books - to follow this up. She had enough work to be getting on with, and so did Teddy.

Stout Sommerby was up to something, and he had resolved to find out what.

“It’s just a feature on endangered species in the United Kingdom, nothing fancy. Bernard’s working with Sommerby and probably won’t be happy that Sommerby didn’t tell him about the leads he was following.”

The young woman continued to survey him, but after a moment, she seemed convinced. She replaced her wand behind her ear, and settled back in her chair, her feet up on the desk.

Teddy stood in silence, papers still clamped to his chest. His mind was whirring at hundred miles per hour, ideas of how to continue flitting in and out of focus. He needed to calm down. He needed his notebook. And he might need Fred to bounce ideas off.

“Anything else?” Her sharp tone sliced through his musings.

“Oh… no, I don’t think so.”

Unless, maybe… maybe she could be of use later on, when Teddy had more of a plan. Sommerby’s employment records, his address, his known associates - Teddy knew he had to do something, at least, about the man’s outfitter, and potentially his grocer - might come in useful. But whether Teddy had the authority to request those, he didn’t know. Creevey, maybe… and the woman fancied him, bizarrely, and Teddy could use that…

He needed to time to think.

“Then go.”


	6. Lupin Lunacy at Daily Prophet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Teddy Lupin, 17, son of war heroes Nymphadora Tonks and Remus Lupin, falsely accused Albert Sommerby, 53, senior reporter at prominent wizarding broadsheet, of stealing intellectual property and general dishonest deeds. By Albert Sommerby.

“You!”

Sommerby barely fitted in his desk chair. His tweed-enveloped form flopped out from underneath the arms, and his fat legs barely reached the floor. Teddy could see his brightly coloured coordinated socks above fancy brogues.

The man looked at him, shocked, his chins wobbling.

“What’s that, boy?”

Teddy stood above him, in his tiny little cubicle. The walls of his booth were plastered with pictures and articles and notes, and there were pictures of smaller blonde blobs that appeared to be his children.

“You owe me a debt!”

People’s heads bobbed up over the walls of the office booths. Teddy hadn’t realised how loud he sounded.

“What are you talking about?”

Teddy ignored the crowd gathering around. His heart was racing again, loud in his ears, and he forced himself to be calm. He had gathered enough proof to make these claims. He had practiced and rehearsed in the mirror in his bedroom. Fred was on board. Victoire agreed with him. He was in the right.

Teddy cleared his throat. He placed a diagram on the desk in front of Sommerby.

“This is a potion composition chart from the DeochPotioneers Institute. It displays the amount and concentration of wormwood, rat’s liver, and Ashwinder yolk in potion samples found first at the dungeon at Hogwarts, and secondly at the bomb site near Diagon Alley.”

Sommerby looked at him, still confused. Someone in the crowd was whispering.

“They are the same. See? These values show they are same.”

Sommerby looked at where his finger was pointing.

“Look, boy, I don’t know what you’re getting at…”

Another document, an article this time. “This an article, written by one of your colleagues, which details the composition of _my_ potion, _my_ formula. This is where you got the idea.”

“Lupin, I demand you tell me what’s going on.”

“You stole my idea! You stole my potion! You used it at the Diagon Alley house to get rid of something - whatever you wanted to destroy, I don’t care - but it’s important that you give me the recognition I deserve. Financial, preferably.”

“Benson, go and get Oswald. Now,” Sommerby said, his tone disgruntled. His face was bright and blushing with indignation, and he was squirming in his chair, trying to get up but failing.

“You managed to acquire the wormwood and the rat’s liver just fine - but the Ashwinder egg, those are rare. Those are endangered. You needed special permission.”

The crowd was gathering closer now. Paper messages were batting against people’s heads and hats, but they were ignoring them. Teddy felt himself blushing. He thought the moment would be a bit more exciting, a bit more of an exhilarating climax.

He placed another piece of parchment on Sommerby’s desk.

“These are record requests, signed by you. These show that you requested several articles about Ashwinder protection, Ashwinder procurement, caring for and looking after Ashwinders. Bit of a niche hobby, no?”

Sommerby’s face grew even redder, if that was possible.

“You also requested copies of the trade records from the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures last week.”

“A house in Norfolk burnt down after Ashwinder eggs ignited. They were left for too long. I was just checking, you know, for a story…”

Teddy scoffed.

“Fine. My son,” Sommerby stammered, “my son is writing a project on species conservation…”

“A likely story!” Teddy pointed at the fat man accusingly, but the action felt forced and fake, nowhere near as smooth as it had looked in the mirror of his bedroom. The blush deepened.

One more document. The most important.

“Here’s the patent for my potion. Lupin’s Liquidation Liniment. I’ve got the intellectual property rights, and you owe me money. I appreciate the free advertising, but you owe me recognition. You used it in that house and blew everything up!”

“You can’t be serious!”

“Of course I am! Now hand over the fifty galleons, or I’ll have to take this to small claims court. My godfather exerts a substantial amount of influence there, you know.”

Sommerby picked up the sheet of parchment, and pulled a monocle out of his waistcoat pocket. He squinted at the fancy cursive script, at the official signature and the red wax seal. He held it up to the light of his desk lamp, and Teddy knew what he was looking for - the watermark that proved its authenticity. And there it was.

“This is just another of your pranks. You managed to produce a realistic Metamorphmagi confirmation certification when asked,” Sommerby blustered, slamming the document back down on the desktop. The crowd had parted, and Teddy could see Oswald hurrying towards the booth. “You have a knack at this, really. Illegally acquired documents, that’s your forte.”

“And illegally acquired Ashwinder eggs is yours!” Teddy shouted back, and then winced at the quality of his comeback. He had not prepared for any counter arguments.

“When we went to the bomb site,” Sommerby continued, finally standing up, but still much shorter than Teddy, “when we went to report on it, that was the first time I’d ever been to that place. I hadn’t read any article about your exploits in the dungeon, because frankly, I don’t care enough.”

Teddy felt his ears turn red and he tried to force himself to calm down, before he gave anything else away.

Sommerby turned suddenly, and Teddy was surprised that his bulk moving so swiftly didn’t throw off his centre of gravity. The man plucked a picture off the wall of his booth, and shoved it in Teddy’s face.

“This is my son,” he said, pointing at one of the blonde blobs. “He’s in Third Year. A Hufflepuff as well. He’s talked about you before, about your great deeds. And now I have a story for him!”

Teddy’s mouth formed a thin line. Sommerby rummaged in his in-tray, and pulled a crinkled note from within.

“This is a letter from him asking for help on a Care of Magical Creatures project. There…” Sommerby said, throwing the letter in Teddy’s face, “there is some proof for _you,_ my friend!”

Teddy stood stock still, clutching onto the letter, covered in a child’s sprawling handwriting. The crowd of journalists around him were chattering, and one or two were laughing. Oswald was looking on, exasperated, and Teddy saw the record keeper - looking even more frumpish in the light of the offices, rather than the dark of her domain - muttering to him, clearly alerting him to Teddy’s activities in the record room.

“I… I… err…”

“That’s right. How dare you come to me with these accusations? Especially before properly checking your facts. Aren’t you learning anything about being a journalist?”

“Yeah, well…”

“Well what?”

“I mean technically I’m working with photography,” Teddy snapped, but he knew it was weak.

“But still it is _imperative_ that you check your facts! Even with captions - with names and dates and locations! I find it the height of rudeness that you came to me with this. I am reporting you to Oswald - ah, yes, hello Adebayo, thank you for coming - and hopefully he will deal out some kind of appropriate punishment.”

The crowd turned to Oswald, who rubbed a hand over his five o’clock shadow, and stared at Teddy with heavy, tired eyes.

“But it makes sense!” Teddy tried. He had failed again. He imagined his grandmother’s disappointed smile, her shaking hands as she read the letter from Oswald, her fiddling with china teacups and saucers when Pennyhugh came to visit. He wasn’t sure he would be able to sit through that again.

“Someone definitely stole my potion, my idea! And I think it was you!”

“How would blowing up a house be of any use to me? If anything, with house prices what they are in London these days, I’d try and do anything to secure it!”

A couple of other reporters laughed.

Teddy felt embarrassed and frustrated, his hands clenched into fists. He looked at the documents he had acquired, scattered across Sommerby’s desk and thought of all the hard work he had done to get them. If he had just done the same with his OWLs, or the prank in the dungeon, or his Metamorphmagi plan, maybe he wouldn’t be in this mess.

People all around were looking at him, and it wasn’t in the way he wanted. He was used to the praise and applause laden on him after a successful prank, or the boring, cautious looks of his fellow students when he was mid-plan. Maybe it was different because they were adults, and he had been so publicly wrong.

Creevey was there, at the front of the crowd. He was grimacing.

“Lupin, Creevey, come on,” Oswald said, “come with me. The rest of you, back to work. And Barry needs feeding.”

Oswald hefted a bag of guinea-pig feed into a copywriter’s hand, and they scurried off to feed him. Teddy gathered up his notes and papers, including the note from Sommerby Jr., and trudged towards Oswald’s office.

“What do you think you are doing?” Creevey whispered angrily in his ear, his hand at Teddy’s elbow. They paused in the midst of the moving group of people, who were shuffling back to their desks. The show was over.

“You wouldn’t listen! I told you there was something, but you wouldn’t listen!”

“Don’t you put this on me! If this comes back to me in any way…”

“Oh, Merlin forbid I possibly risk your position at the Prophet. The job you clearly want and you clearly enjoy.”

“Don’t be sarcastic!”

“But it’s so much fun,” Teddy snapped back.

Oswald was standing at the door to his office, waiting for the two of them. Teddy started towards him, but Creevey grabbed his arm again.

“How did you do this?” He asked, gesturing at the sheath of papers in Teddy’s arms. “All this work. How?”

Teddy looked at the older man, at the flopping hair and the dishevelled suit jacket. He was wearing a tie - the one that was constantly hanging on the hook on the back of his office door - but it was loose and crooked, clearly thrown on as he entered the journalists’ bull-pen, for fear of Egbert’s wrath.

Teddy felt a bit sorry for him.

“Well, clearly you won’t tell me,” Creevey said, resigned, “but I’m sure Oswald will get it out of you. It’s impressive, though, whatever he says.”

“Oh… well… thanks.”

Creevey grimaced. “Let’s get this over with.”

 

***

 

They all watched as a dark purple paper message flew through the door, and hovered obediently next to Oswald’s desk. He sighed heavily, and got up to close the door himself. The sound of the bull-pen outside was silenced immediately.

Dennis leaned towards the boy, who looked confused, still gripping at his papers, and whispered to him.

“Purple means Egbert.”

“Why is he getting involved?”

“Because you’re a special case,” Oswald answered, reading the note quickly, and putting it to one side. “Everyone knew it was a risk to sign you up, a delinquent…”

“Steady on,” Lupin answered. He was jiggling his knee up and down, and the movement jerked on Dennis’ nerves. “I’d say I’m an artist.”

“Of course you would,” Oswald replied. “Egbert wants me to tell you to stop investigating Albert Sommerby, and to return to your assigned role. This serves as a warning - you’re already in his bad books because of the whole Metamorphmagus fiasco - and the next time you do anything remotely controversial, you’ll be out.”

“Fine with me,” the boy said. He finally stopped moving his leg. Oswald stared at him, shaking his head.

“How… what… why would you think this was even vaguely appropriate? What made you think that accusing a senior journalist - an employee who has been here for more than twenty years - why would you think that such a thing would be okay?”

“I had proof.”

“Apparently,” Oswald replied, and gestured for Lupin to hand over his files. The boy did, although reluctantly. There was silence as Oswald shifted through the pieces of paper, the various articles and charts and official documents. Dennis marvelled at the scope of the boy’s work.

He hadn’t seen Lupin since Tuesday, and today was Friday. Dennis had existed in a strange dream-like existence, where he could nap and read comic books at all times of the day, and venture out for photography projects only occasionally. And  even that wasn’t so bad, because then he could avoid the rest of the office in the secluded dark room.

Dennis had spent the days in a blissful, juvenile-free haze, aside from some strange, seductive looks from Meredith. Bernard had shaken him awake when someone alerted them of the hubbub in the bull-pen, and he realised he had been juvenile himself to think that the boy had been doing anything  remotely innocent.

“Where did you get all of this?” Oswald asked, and Dennis sat up, wanting to know the answer himself. “This must have taken days to find and sort.”

“Not if you know the right people,” Lupin answered, and Dennis silently urged him to not be so contemptuous. “And I do.”

“Go on then,” their boss replied. “Enlighten me.”

“Like hell. I’m not giving you any tips on how to do your job.”

Dennis groaned.

“I’m going to ignore that,” Oswald said, but his voice was low and dangerous. Dennis often forgot how much power the kindly man could yield, and how he too had an impressive journalistic record. “You can trust, Lupin, that anything you tell me, I already know.”

The teenager looked to Dennis, who nodded.

“Fine.”

Oswald handed him the potioneer calculations.

“My… err… my friend is the Golpalottscholar at the DeochInstitute.  The Hogwarts ambassador. Won it in second year. He helped me prove that the residue found after my dungeon explosion and the powder found at the bomb site were the same. That’s what the charts refer to.”

Dennis faltered. The name rang a bell. He had heard it before, possibly from Bernard, or maybe he had read it somewhere.

“Who’s this friend?”

Lupin paled, and looked to Dennis before answering. “He won’t get in trouble, will he? They let him do all sorts of tests and experiments in the laboratories there.”

“No, he won’t.”

“Fred Weasley Jr.”

Oswald made a note, and Lupin continued.

“I assumed that Sommerby - sorry, the culprit - got the idea from the article that someone had published the week I blew up that dungeon. They’d written about the ingredients, you see. And there were pictures of the damage, the effect the potion had.”

Oswald’s eyes skimmed over the article.

“A copy-cat.”

“Yes,” the boy said, and Dennis shook his head at the proud note in the boy’s voice. “The most difficult ingredient to get would be Ashwinder egg, because of their protected status, so I figured that Somm… that the bomber would have to have special access.”

“Hence the records.”

Lupin nodded.

“I requested some trader records from the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. They list the buyers and sellers, and I thought the culprit’s name might be on them.”

“And Sommerby’s wasn’t?”

“No, but that record keeper lady…”

“Meredith.”

“Meredith, right. She told me that Sommerby had requested the very same records the day before.”

Dennis sat up. He remembered the odd looks Meredith had given him the past few days, and how he had taken extra effort to avoid her, more effort than usual. And now he found out that she was involved in this mess somehow…

“Yes, she told me about that. So you looked into him.”

“Yes.”

“This is the main thing we have an issue with, Lupin,” Oswald said, flicking through the record requests, including Sommerby’s employment records, his personal details, and which books and notes he had looked at. “The employees’ personal security is of tantamount importance to us, so I want to know how you came to get a hold of these.”

Lupin looked sheepish. Dennis suddenly felt nervous, a feeling that exacerbated as the boy turned to face him with a look that Dennis could only describe as apologetic.

“My other friend - Victoire Weasley - she helped me.”

Oswald noted down the name, but Dennis felt as if the boy was trying to shift the blame somehow. Poor girl.

“The record keeper…”

“Meredith.”

“Meredith told me… well, she didn’t tell me, so much as… urmm… made hints that she had certain… err… feelings for Mr. Creevey here.”

Dennis squirmed. Oswald raised his eyebrows at him, his lips pressing together as if he was trying not to laugh. Dennis felt his face flush bright red.

“So I abused that a bit, I guess. Turned up at the records room with some flowers and a note that Victoire helped me write and Meredith got me what I wanted after that.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

Dennis opened his mouth to speak, but then thought better of it. The Meredith he knew was relatively astute, and quite observant. Judging by the number of notes she had sent him about work and photographs that apparently demanded a reply, Dennis figured that she would be able to recognise his hand-writing.

“What flowers did you give her?” Dennis said, and Oswald blinked at the interruption. Even Lupin looked confused.

“Why, want to follow up the nice gesture?”

“Lupin…”

“Lilies.”

Dennis snorted. “I’m allergic.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Lupin replied, “I’ll keep that in mind for the next time I have to seduce one of your many suitors to get my way.”

Oswald cleared his throat.

“So I found out that Sommerby had requested some books on Ashwinders,” Lupin continued, “some previous articles about them, their conservation, stuff like that. It seemed to seal the deal.”

“For his son. For a school project.”

“Apparently. Yes.”

Dennis leaned forward and plucked the child’s note from the pile. The parchment was dirty and yellowing, clearly quite old. Dennis looked at it, at the brightly coloured crayon writing, the letters an inch high, a smiling sun in the top corner, and a scribbled picture of an Ashwinder at the bottom, with the colouring spilling out the side.

“How old is his son?”

“He said third year,” Lupin answered. “Why, do you think…”

“And this patent,” Oswald continued, “where did you get that?”

“It’s real, before you ask,” Lupin replied. “And that’s easy. My aunt works for the British Magical Patent and Trademark Office.Got that in an afternoon.”

“So this was all about…”

“Proper compensation, yes.”

Oswald shook his head. “So not even for a story? Not even to help the Law Enforcement with their enquiries?”

“Don’t you remember? They had solved that case. That’s what the Prophet said, anyhow.”

“So all for your own good.”

“Pretty much.”

Lupin’s insane work ethic correlated with his self-interest, obviously. The boy cared enough about procuring payment for the use of his potion that he worked tirelessly for three days to find the answer. If only Dennis cared that much about gossip columns and socialites.

Oswald laughed bitterly.

“Egbert says you can stay on. But you’ll have to formally apologise to Sommerby. And Meredith. And Creevey. You demonstrated great journalistic ability, you know, and I’d like to see you put that towards an actual story. Would be quite interesting to see.”

“Right.”

“Want to say anything?”

“I… err… thanks, I guess.”

“You can go.”

Lupin scrambled out of his chair, all limbs, and was out the door in a flash. Oswald stood, and Dennis followed.

“If you want to fire him, you have my permission. He accused Sommerby of an actual crime, regardless of his monetary motivations. I don’t think he’ll last much longer. And this is what you’ve wanted, right? To get rid of him?”

Dennis nodded, thoughts whirring. He shuffled the papers into a neat pile, intending to return them to Lupin. The child’s note lay on top, its age, its handwriting and its drawings disproportionate to the thirteen-year old who had apparently written it.

“Eh, I don’t know.”

“I thought he was hindering your carefully balanced and intricately evaluated work schedule?”

“Maybe. I guess.” 

Dennis couldn’t think. He struggled through his fog of memory for a glimpse of the Deoch Potioneers Institute, whether he had photographed their gala, or avoided someone asking for funds. He had never been great at Potions, remembering Severus Snape and his curtain of greasy hair and shuddering. Slughorn hadn’t been much better.

Oswald sat back in his chair, rubbing his hands over his tired eyes.

“Right. Well, it’s up to you. He’s your charge, now. I gave you the chance, and now he’s your responsibility.”

“Great.”

“Just let me know by the end of the day.”

Dennis’ hand found the door handle, and he paused, and the sound of the bull-pen, of voices and typewriters, of voice recordings and the scratching of quills, filled his ears. He imagined a world without the annoying presence of Teddy Lupin, a world without responsibility, a world without the constant anxiety that the boy might do something extremely drastic. He felt its pull, and he was tempted by its serenity, its familiarity. 

But then he remembered - the gilded cursive font, the picture of a cauldron, the R.S.V.P - and his grip tightened around the door handle. Oswald called out to him, but he didn’t hear. His ears had filled with a buzzing, an exciting, expectant hum.

He didn’t hear Meredith’s meek calls as he grabbed his overcoat and slipped the tie loose from around his neck, or  even Bernard’s protests and questions as he grabbed his bag and his camera from the office. Sound only returned when he found himself outside the Prophet headquarters and, confronted with the noise of the bustling Muggle street, he looked again at the records Lupin had found.

And just like that, with minimal effort on his part, life had become just a little bit more exciting. 

 

***

 

“Sssh!”

“ _You_ were pushing _me!_ ”

“I said _sssh!”_

They could barely see Sommerby through the gaps in the old, wooden door. Teddy thought that was remarkably, considering the man’s enormous size and his proclivity for brightly coloured suits. Teddy’s knees were hurting, and the omnioculars were cutting red rings into his eyes. It seemed like he and Creevey had been crouching here for hours.

Creevey had managed to find him, on the rooftop opposite Sommerby’s house, touting nonsense about the Deoch Potioneers Institute and invitations to galas, and the fact that Sommerby was a patron. Teddy didn’t know what to make of it, only that his patent renumeration would be considerably larger if the potion had been developed and manufactured in that sort of establishment.

“He’s still scurrying around the edges of the room.”

“He’s been doing that for hours. What’s he muttering?”

“A spell. _Immobulus,_ I think.”

They had followed Sommerby to some old warehouse, not far from his quaint little terraced house, but dilapidated and rotting. He had donned some thick, dragon-hide gloves, and proceeded to operate a huge kiln. Teddy had wanted to break in after him, but Creevey had stalled him. He had guessed that Creevey would not want to reveal their position this soon, but he doubted that the older man possessed that level of strategic thought. 

Even so, breaking and entering would add to his already impressive repetoire. He considered his current record: criminal damage, identify theft, illegal acquirement of medical records, and defamation. Didn’t want to stay at the Prophet any longer than he had to.

“What do you reckon he’s up to?”

“He’s just sitting by the kiln now.”

Teddy slumped against the wood, and watched a cat saunter down a garden wall. He couldn’t be dealing with these constant anti-climaxes, they seemed to be harder on the nerves than the ringing anxiety. And Creevey was making everything worse, spouting utter nonsense and still squatting there awkwardly. His eyes were bulging with excitement, and Teddy thought that he might just ribbit and hop off.

“I’m bored.”

“You can go.”

“I just might.”

“You won’t get your money. Or your proof.”

“But if _you_ stay…”

Creevey peeled himself away from the gap in the wood.

“Oh, I am not doing your dirty work for you.”

“Of course!” Teddy exclaimed, his voice definitely above a whisper. “Of course I’m not surprised that that you don’t want to do any sort of _work._ ”

“And I’m surprised that you aren’t continuing to promote your own self interest”.

“I didn’t realise it would be so boring!”

“Sssh!”

Creevey returned to the gap in the wood. Teddy could still hear the crackling of the flames, and the heavy footfalls of their rotund colleague.

“What’s he doing now?”

“Nothing. The same.”

“See? Boring.” His voice was rising.

“Life _is_ boring, Lupin. You’re so naive. No one pranks anyone in the real, grown up world. We’re all bored. All the time. It’s a facade. Not all of us grew up with war heroes and a barrage of cousins.”

“What did you grow up with then?” Teddy blurted out. “What made you such a pessimistic old git?”

Creevey dropped the omnioculars, which clanged to the floor. His hand slipped on the door’s latch, the metal rattling against the wood. Creevey had made some sort of strangled noise, half way between a scoff of indignation and some sort of whimper of pain.

They both froze. The footsteps got louder and louder as the teetering tower of tweed thundered towards the door. Teddy could hear his panting breath, the squeak of his fancy brogues, and acted fast.

The Decoy Detonator scampered out from Teddy’s pocket and disappeared around the corner. The subsequent explosion was enough to send a plume of black smoke into the air.

The doors banged open, and - moving surprisingly fast for a man of his stature - Sommerby hurtled out onto the street. Teddy and Creevey flattened themselves against the side of the building, but Sommerby was already around the corner and investigating the noise.

Teddy, heart racing and palms sweating, dashed into the warehouse. The heat was stifling. A large, squat kiln sat in the corner, surrounded by bags of coal and chopped logs. Teddy creeped forward, his eyes stinging with smoke. He pulled his wand from his jacket.

The kiln door opened with a creak and a hiss from the hot coals. Teddy stared. Sommerby had let the fire burn unchecked, and now the embers glowed bright blue, with orange sparks. The air smelt metallic, vaguely antiseptic. Any Muggle would know that this fire was magical. 

“I’ll keep look out!” Creevey said from the doorway.

Teddy looked around. The walls were bare, but the floor was patterned with swirls and spirals; dusty grey lines curving and curling around the room. He could see where Sommerby’s heavy footprints had smudged the dust, in a path around the edge of the room.

“What can you see?”

“Sssh!”

Teddy followed the looping lines, into the shadowy corners of the old warehouse. It was warm here too, but beyond the distinct blue glow of the magical fire, tiny red eyes glittered out of the darkness.

“ _Lumos!”_

“What are you doing? I had to set off another Detonator!”

Creevey had followed him inside, coughing with the smoke. He stopped almost immediately, eyes bulging again, overcoat pulled up over his head.

“But that’s…”

“I know.”

“They’re endangered. And he’s…”

“I _know!”_

Teddy knelt to the floor and held his hand out. The tiny grey serpent slithered up his arm, pleasantly warm on his skin.

“Ashwinders!”

“This is huge, Lupin!” The older man pulled his camera from his rucksack and began snapping away, and the Ashwinders recoiled from the flash. They slithered back into the shadows and wrapped themselves around the piles of red eggs.

“Creevey…”

“This is insane! I mean, I knew you were on to something, but nothing like this…”

Teddy stared around the warehouse. There were piles of red eggs everywhere, surrounded by piles of dust. Ashwinders squirmed out of sight of the bright lights, of Creevey’s stamping feet. Some were dissolving into clouds of ash before Teddy’s eyes.

“Creevey, stop!”

“But this is your proof! Not about your patent, but proof that Sommerby was up to something…”

The room was definitely getting hotter. Teddy’s shirt was sticking to his back with sweat, and pooling at his armpits. But the magical fire was dying… He struggled quickly to remember _anything_ from his Care of Magical Creatures class, _anything_ from his bizarre Aunt Luna, from Bernard, or _anything_ from the notes that Sommerby had sequestered from the records at the Prophet.

Creevey was still bouncing around. Teddy eyed the crates of frozen Ashwinder eggs.

“We need to get out of here!”

“What… is Sommerby back? Where is he?”

The heat was overwhelming now, stinging at Teddy’s eyes. His brain was whirring, moving at a hundred miles an hour, sifting through facts. He pulled the sheets of notes out of his rucksack, but the orange sparks singed them with little black specks. _Magical fires…_ the notes read… _if they manage to roam free and lay their eggs, the eggs will ignite and may burn the building down in minutes…_

Teddy grabbed Creevey by the sleeve and pulled him towards the door.

“We need to go!”

“But…”

Sommerby was blocking the doorway, his sweaty face plastered with soot and shock. Teddy pushed passed him and pulled Creevey out on the street, just as the wooden door exploded off its hinges and the entire structure burst into flames.

Creevey patted the sleeve of his overcoat where a small fire had burned a sizeable patch in the material. Sommerby was lying quietly by the wall. Teddy could hear him sniffling and sobbing, and assumed he was crying.

“Merlin’s beard,” Creevey muttered.

“You’re welcome.”

The sound of Muggle sirens filled the air.


End file.
